I saw something online….maybe on Pinterest, I don’t know.  It was a cute little donkey planter that had been turned into a pin cushion.  Well, I thought that was a fine little idea as it would maybe make my pin cushion stay put and be easier to aim at when sewing at the machine.  Now, I am not really a donkey person and honestly would not know where to find a donkey planter even if I was a big donkey fan.  I also wanted to use my youngest, Katie, as my guinea pig for this project and give it to her when I finished so I figured a simple pot.  I popped (stood in a line for 1.5 hours) into Ikea for another project yet to come and while I was there I saw this little pot.  Sweet and simple and a blank cancas so my daughter can paint it and make it her own.  When she gets to getting that done I will update the post with a picture.  She is a teenagers though so painting the pot probably isnt her highest level priority.

The pretty quilting fabric you see in the picture was bought for me by Katie from Amazon.

It is not a large piece of fabric though so it is just the top side of the cushion.  The bottom is a simple  cream calico also gifted to me by Katie….quite sweet of her to do this.  You will see more of these fabrics in the future I am sure.

 

I used a bowl to cut out the two circles a bit larger than the open end of the pot.  This seemed like a great idea at the time but before even finishing I realised this was not at all ideal.  In future I will try and make a cylinder shape or more a flowerpot shape I guess as the two circles made for a rather small pod which didn’t really quite fit….okay it was too small and dropped down into the pot.  Not a helpful design.  I also forgot to turn it right side out so my seams are showing…oops!  The fabrics were both the same on both sides so having wrong sides wasn’t a cue for me and I just forgot.

 

 

I used my machine to sew around about 3/4 of the way before stuffng it with off cuts of fabric that I have built up over the last few weeks.  I think I did slightly underfill it but live and learn.  I hand sewed the last bit shut as I am not coordinated enough to use a machine for something like this yet.  As I said the pot and the cushion didnt match in size so I filled the pot with more off cuts and yarn.

 

 

At this point it was time to secure the cushion in the pot.  I decided to glue it in but I didn’t actually know what would be the best adhesive to attach fabric to ceramic and also didnt have many options to hand.  I have wood glue, PVC glue or superglue.  I opted for superglue.  As the size of the cushion wasnt really that big and there were seams in the way, I got some help.  My husband, Alan, was in charge of glue and I used my yarn needle to hold the cushion out of the way in the pot as he put the glue in so I could release the fabric and let it stick.  Future idea is that the cushion is the shape of the pot and the glue (hot glue maybe….comment what you think might be a good choice) goes in at the bottom and sides and I just stick that cushion in and let the glue dry.  Trial and error is my way of learning anything….error being my default setting.

 

So this was my finished product.  It has a good solid base so isn’t going to try to escape when you try to stab your pins in one handed while the other hand is full.  I am sure Katie will do a very colourful, psychedelic paint job in the future.

If you have any ideas for improving this design for future attempts let me know.  Do you know what glue would be best?

Hope you have enjoyed reading. Have a great day!