I like bowls.
I like bowls full of good things.
Zero-calorie bowlfuls of good things?
Just lovely.
Sometimes I make a lot of something(s) just so I can have a bowlful.
Like this:
It's my bowlful of pincushion rings.
I only have ten fingers, but I've got nearly thirty rings now.
A bowlful.
Perfect.
I love using mine at the sewing machine when I'm pulling pins from a seam I'm stitching.
There are probably lots of tutorials out there, but here is the way I made mine.
Gather up your supplies.
- Fabric glue
- 3" diameter circle of fabric
- 3" piece of 1/4" elastic
- water bottle cap
- 4" piece of 1/4" or 3/8" ribbon
- circle of felt same size as bottle cap
- small amount of fiberfill
- strong thread
- needle and scissors
Of course, you would actually start by cutting out your 3" fabric circles, so I'll tell you how I did mine.
I found a spool of ribbon that was 3" across...
...layered several scraps of fabric on top of each other and traced around the spool with my 'iron-away' marking pen.
A brief word about this neon color pen: it shows up on dark fabric, which is just so nice.
Here is photo proof (as well as a little visual tip on placing patterns over printed designs):
Use cardstock to make a pattern for your felt circles; just trace around the bottom edge of the bottle cap (it's usually just a bit wider than the top, which is good) .
Then, just hold the pattern on a small square of felt with one hand and cut around it with a small scissors.
Ready for assembly?
Here we go.
Poke the two holes for the elastic directly across from one another using whatever tool you feel safest using.
Glue your felt circle to the bottom.
Poke through the felt at the holes you made in the cap.
Push one end of your elastic through one hole and tie a secure knot close to the end and then repeat with the other end (if you secure one end first, you'll be able to pull the length through which you'll need to tie the knot in the other; then just pull the 'ring' back out).
It will look like this:
Now, use your heavy-duty thread to make a running stitch around the entire edge of your fabric circle.
Pull the threads to gather it just a bit and then fill it with fiberfill.
Now press it down with your finger, put in more fiberfill than you think you can, and pull the thread taut.
Keeping it taut while you knot off the thread is probably the toughest part of the whole project, but when you're done you'll have a ball like this:
Now put some glue in your ring base...
...and shove that ball in there and hang onto it for a minute while you put a little glue around the side of the bottle cap.
Lay your ribbon over the glue, put a dab of glue at the end of the ribbon and press it under, then put a bit more glue under the end and lay it over the raw end of the ribbon.
Here is where some tutorials would call it a day, but I'm not big on leaving fabric solely in the hands of glue so I use regular thread (or leftover pieces of embroidery thread) to stitch the felt to the ribbon...
...and the ribbon to the fabric ball (which means I'll never see a speck of that plastic cap).
And voila! You're all finished.
Now slip it on and use it.
Or.....
Make more.
Make lots more.
Load up a work tray so you can make one every single time you sit still to listen to something or set a spell on the front porch.
If your fabulous trip to Europe broke your back and the doctor says not to do much while he's trying to get it healed, well, make sure you really load up a work tray.
Shall we dissect this work tray?
We have our little 'kits' which haven't been worked yet:
And we have our elastic pieces:
We have our assembled rings which need to be stitched:
And we have our partially-made-but-waiting-for-someone-to-drink-a-bottle-of-water rings:
We have our ready-for-the-bowl rings:
And we have a little pile of teensy felt pieces leftover from cutting the circles; I use them for stuffing.
And last, but not least, we have what The Prince calls "The Nightmare".
I call it Perfection.
It's all the leftover bits of embroidery thread from other projects.
I got tired of trying to keep track of lengths of thread which had been separated into one, two, three (etc) strands.
I started just putting them in a heap and using them like thread on projects like this.
It keeps me from having to get out a bunch of spools of sewing thread.
And it uses up leftovers (you know how I feel about that)!
I have never had a problem extricating the color I need from this pile; it only hurts my eyes to look at it.
Soooo.
Back to the bowl.
