I’m excited to bring back Lea from Inspired Quilting by Lea Louise for the second in a series of sewing guest posts. Today, Lea is showing you how to make the easy pincushion pattern for the Rag Rose Pincushion. Whether you’re a beginner sewist or quilter, or if you already have quite a few projects (and a fabric stash) under your belt, you’ll enjoy this quick and easy pincushion pattern! These make great gifts, too, and Lea has some wonderful tips for adding scent, so reading on for details.
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About Inspired Quilting by Lea Louise
Lea Louise is a Christian, wife, mother, and grandmother blessed with a creative spirit who shares the joy of creating in many forms. She is the quilt teacher and blogger behind Inspired Quilting by Lea Louise, providing quilting inspiration and instruction to quilters of all levels. She is a fabric and fiber fanatic not bound by convention, but driven by a love of nature’s beauty. A lifelong quilter inspired by color and design, Lea Louise provides artistic inspiration through knowledge and experiences, so quilters of all skill levels can create more beauty in their life every day through her creative journey.
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How To Sew an Easy Rag Rose Pincushion
Rag Rose sewn to a simple 4-patch pincushion
Easy Pincushion Pattern by Inspired Quilting by Lea Louise
A 4-patch block is one of the easiest patchwork squares you can make. Especially when your project only needs one! Pair that up with a couple of simple rag quilt techniques et voilà! You’ll love this sweet little rag rose pincushion. So will anyone you make it for.
This rag rose pincushion is stuffed with just fiberfill for lots of dimension. But also consider some other options that would be perfect for gifts. Add a small packet of rose hips or lavender inside to add some fragrance and you’ll have a beautiful sachet. This could also be easily made larger for a pillow. Or try multiple sizes for sweet grouping of floral pillows. Let your imagination run wild and see what you can create with this simple idea!
Fabric Requirements
- 4 squares – 2.5” x 2.5”
- 1 backing square – 4.5” x 4.5”
- 2 strips for rag rose – 1” x 12”
- 2 fusible squares – 4” x 4”
- Fiberfill for stuffing
- Fabric needed for Rag Rose Pincushion can easily be pulled from your scrap pile.
- Sew 2.5” squares into a 4-patch block measuring 4.5” x 4.5”.
- Center fleece to wrong side of 4-patch and fuse.
- With narrow rag strips wrong sides together, make about a dozen ¼” (0.25”) clips along the right-hand edge. Space the clipping ¼” apart. Place the clipped end across the center of the 4-patch block. Begin sewing along the center of the strip in a circular pattern, keeping the strip close together which will create a full rose. Stop every inch or so to adjust your strip for sewing, continuing to clip the outer edge as you go. Sew & clip until you reach the end of the strip.
- After sewing strips in place. Go back and clip the other side of the strip to create more petals. Clipping both sides as you’re sewing makes it difficult to keep those pieces from getting caught as you sew around the circle. Therefore the clipping is done after the sewing.
- To keep the circular bloom effect, trim a narrow piece from the end of the sewn strip as shown in the photo.
- Adhere fusible fleece to the wrong side of the backing fabric.
- Place pincushion front and back with wrong sides together. Sew a scant 0.5” (1/2”) seam around all four sides leaving a 2” opening on one side. The advantage of adhering the fleece is the smooth outer surface it creates on the pincushion. This eliminates any lumps showing from the fiberfill after stuffing.
- Stuff pincushion to desired fullness and sew the opening closed. Trim of the tips of each corner and snip ¼” (.25”) clips around entire pincushion.
- Rub your fingertips or the edge of a small straight ruler along the clipped edges of both the rag rose and outer edges. This will add more fullness to your finished piece.
If you fill your pincushion with hair- human hair, either yours after a cut, or from your stylist’s floor perhaps as it takes quite a bit- your pins will not rust. They will be lubricated every time you use them by the natural oils of the hair. Push them in all the way to the head. Use a very tightly woven fabric either totally or as an inner bag to keep the hair from poking out. Makes a nice family momenta to know the hair donor.
Thanks for the tip, J. I’m not sure human hair is the right memento for me, though :).
Museums are a good place to find human hairpincushions, as well as crocheted and knitted items, and felted rolls and bun forms for creating coiffure, and artwork. Pioneers made items from their long hairs caught in hairbrush.
Search on vintage hair items and ancient hair items.