Victorian Pincushion on spindle stand: 7 – assembling the ‘strawberry’

The little emery ‘strawberry’ is the final part that I need to stitch as part of the Victorian Pincushion on a spindle stand project that I am making from the Victoria sampler chart  booklet.

This is a pretty little ‘small’ that didn’t take long to stitch. To make it up into the actual strawberry, I first trimmed the fabric to within a centimetre of the running stitch outline round the embroidery. Then I folded the fabric in half and stitched a backstitch line just inside the running stitch (so that I didn’t need to bother removing the running stitches later), to make the fabric into a cone.

Next, I turned it right side out, and ran a line of running stitches around the top edge using number 12 Perle thread.

I lightly stuffed the shape with wadding (not emery powder, as my strawberry is only going to be decorative!). I pulled up the ends of the thread, turning in the seam allowance at the same time, and knotted the thread to make the strawberry shape.

It looked a bit messy at this stage, but the embroidery will cover that up, hopefully!

I then stitched a few long straight stitches in dark green silk around the top of the strawberry, and then added three little silk ribbong bows in dark green. Finally, I added a central loop in variegated silk ribbon and tied a small bow at the top, to hang the strawberry by, on the pincushion spindle.

And this is it finished:

So, my lovely Victorian Pincushion etui set is now complete! I am really pleased with this. It will look lovely in my glass display cabinet with all my other embroidery, but will also be useful when I’m doing even more embroidery.

This is such an unusual project from Thea Dueck of Victoria Sampler. Take a look at her website to see lots of other unusual and creative embroidery projects.

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Victorian Pincushion on spindle stand: 5 – assembling the needlebook

I’ve embroidered and assembled the Victorian pincushion on its turned spindle stand from a chart pack from Victoria Sampler, and now I’m starting to assemble the needlebook that will go with it.

First, I made a template of the front area of the needlebook from tissue paper by placing the stitching and the tissue paper on my light box and gently drawing the outline in pencil onto the paper.

Using the template, I cut the front and back stitched areas out (allowing a centimetre seam allowance on each) and a front and back lining piece from cream satin, again with a one centimetre seam allowance. I then cut two  iron-on interlining pieces to the exact size of the template, and ironed them to the reverse side of each piece of satin. The inner page of the needlebook was cut from white felt to the size of the template and then trimmed to be an eighth of an inch smaller all round, so that it won’t stick out at the edges when the needlebook is closed. I also cut two thick card pieces to the exact template size, to stiffen the covers of the needlebook.

I temporarily tacked the seam allowance of the satin to the reverse on both lining pieces.

I laced the front and back stitching over the stiff card with strong quilting thread.

This is the back panel of the needlebook once laced over the card.

Placing the stitching and the lining wrong sides together, I slip-stitched them together all the way round.

Finally, I removed the tacking stitches from the lining piece.

Holding the back piece, felt inner ‘page’ and front piece together, aligned carefully, I threaded narrow silk ribbon through the three eyelets. The two outer ones I tied in a small bow, and the centre one I looped through, knotted three inches from the loop, and then tied a bow at the end.

This shows what I did with the ribbon:

The needlebook can now be opened, and needles placed in the ‘page’ inside.

This is such a pretty needlebook, which can now be hung on the pincushion stand from a pin placed in the cushion pad on the top.

Now I’ve just got the ‘strawberry’ to stitch and assemble, and the whole project will be complete!

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Victorian Pincushion on spindle stand: 4 – stitching the needlebook

I’m currently stitching this gorgeous pincushion on a wooden base from a Victoria Sampler chart booklet in my stash. Having stitched the pincushion itself, I’m now stitching the smalls – starting with the little needlebook.

This pretty needlebook takes motifs from the pincushion itself, as well as a Bargello wave along the bottom. Three little square eyelets at the top will become the method of making the ‘pages’ of the needlebook hold together – I’ll be threading ribbon through those at the final stage.

This didn’t take long to do, and I was quite pleased with how it turned out…..until I realised just as I was finishing the stitching that I had miscounted somehow, and made it eight fabric threads too long! I think it was when I was working out the placement of the little pearl beads.

Not being a perfectionist, rather than unpick loads and do it correctly, I decided to make my needlebook just a bit longer than the Victoria sampler one! It just means that I have to make sure the reverse side of the needlebook is adapted to be exactly the same shape as this front panel, and adjust the shaping when I assemble it.

It was easy to make the adjustment for the extra length on the reverse side, as there is a lot of ‘blank space’ between the eyelets and the main design.

Shhh!! No-one will notice…..

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Victorian pincushion on spindle stand: 3 – assembling the pincushion

I’m currently stitching this gorgeous pincushion on a wooden base from a Victoria Sampler chart booklet in my stash. I’m up to the part where I need to assemble the stitching to make the actual pincushion.

This is my completed pincushion stitching, before I started to make it into the pincushion.

To make the pincushion pad, I rolled a strip of 2 ounce wadding into a ‘cinnamon bun’ shape, and stitched a few tacking stitches over the end of the  strip to stop it from unravelling. I made a stiff card base for the pincushion, a little bit smaller than the diameter of the wooden circular base, and made a hole in the centre of the card.

Then I trimmed the fabric to within an inch of the embroidery, and made a line of running stitches round the edge, 1cm in, with strong quilting thread. I placed the wadding shape on the card, and then the embroidery on top, and pulled up the running stitched line to gather the fabric onto the dome of wadding.

Then I laced back and forth across the card circle’s base, to pull the fabric tightly to the circular shape.

Next, I used the Perle 12 mauve thread and, following the tacked lines on the circle, I pulled the thread up through the centre hole of the card, wadding and embroidery in the centre, and down over the edge of the shape, six times, to make the divisions on the pincushion, finally tying off securely underneath. Then I removed the tacking stitches.

Lastly, I stuck the pincushion to the wooden circular base, making sure it was centred.

To make the edge look neat where the pincushion joins the wooden base, I made a thick cord using lots of the Perle 12 mauve thread. Tilting the pincushion so that I could see what I was doing, I stuck the cord around the edge, a little at a time, using tacky PVA glue, tucking in the last bit to make it look like one continuous cord (I glued the very end bit first, before trimming, so that it didn’t suddenly unravel when cut!).

Ta-da!! One very successful pincushion on a spindle base!! I used vintage cotton reels from a sewing box that I bought in an antique shop to fill the spindles around the base, using shades picked from the embroidery colours I’d used.

Lovely, isn’t it? Now I need to make the strawberry emery and needlebook that go with this.

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