I’ve been wanting to make these for ages! They combine my love of vintage, repurposing and scrap busting plus they are pretty cute, if I do say so myself! I whipped these up to sell at the ASG stand at the Sewing, Stitching & Handcraft Fair in SA.They are really simple to make.I started by cleaning and drying my thrifted teacups and a cracked Wedgwood pot I found. I cut a circle of fabric (about 8″ diameter for most of them) out with pinking shears. I made my circles about twice the diameter of the cup/pot opening. I find that thinner fabrics work better than thicker.
I hand stitched a running stitch around the edge (but not too close to the edge, you don’t want it to tear through). For the same reason, I thread my needle with doubled thread and knot it, take a tiny stitch and pull the needle through the loop at the knotted end. Or you could just make a big knot!
I pulled up the thread a little, leaving the threaded needle attached and started stuffing the circle with small bits of hobby fill. These take a surprising amount of fill! Once they were neatly stuffed, I stitched the circle closed and squooshed them into a nice shape. I test stuffed the cup, added tiny bits of stuffing to poof out any ugly pleats and just made sure things were looking good.
I don’t have pics for this bit because I’d done all the tea cups before I made this tutorial but here’s a close up of the needle tab. It’s pretty straight forward. I cut out two pieces of felt in the shape of a tea bag tab and trapped a piece of ribbon between them. I machine stitched around the edge and hand stitched the other end of the ribbon to the bottom of the filled fabric circle. 
Next, I ran a generous amount of tacky glue around the cup, about 1cm from the edge of the cup and inserted the pincushion section. If you make the needle tab, just pin it to the top of the pincushion so it doesn’t fall in the glue! I added buttons and ric rac to a few of the pin cushion pots. You really only see the middle of the circle, so I pinned a piece of ric rac from one side of the circle to the other, just off centre. I stitched that down by machine before beginning the stuffing process. Flat buttons need to be sewn on before stuffing but you can add buttons with shanks after stuffing. You could add all sorts of embellishments! I keep things fairly simple for practicality, adding ribbon to the pot where it’s out of the way.
I think these are so cute! And they make great pin cushions! Some have saucers and even small plates for keeping small bits and bobs. If you fancy checking them out, saying hi to me or even buying one of these – get along to the Sewing, Stitching and Handcraft Fair! I will be at the ASG stand on Friday morning until 1.30pm.
Dates
July 18 – 20, 2014
July 18 – 20, 2014
Venue
Wayville Pavilion
Adelaide Showgrounds
Open Times
Friday 10am to 5pm
Saturday 10am to 5pm
Sunday 10am to 5pm
Admission Prices
Adults $10.00
Pensioners $8.00
Kids U/15 Free with an Adult
Part of this post was originally posted on the ASG blog. Since I made some more after posting there, I’ve added this tutorial.
2 Comments
They look absolutely fantastic! I must make myself one of these soon.
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