Valentine Pincushion

In my never ending search for easy hand project to work while riding to work, I decided to make a heart shaped pincushion in honor of Valentine's Day next week.

I used an old cookie cutter as a template, cutting out two of white felt, one of Peltex®, a very stiff non-woven interfacing, and a small pink heart. I cut the Peltex® about 1/8 inch smaller than the white felt heart. This is so when I stitch the front and back together I won't stitch through the Peltex®. By the way, I used some really nice wool felt that I had on hand. You could also use craft felt available at hobby shops. I then drew a few designs on it that I found online at Badbirds. Check out Andrea's website while you're at it. She has a lot of cute hand embroidery designs.

First, I embroidered the pink flower with the white floss (two strands), then the white heart with the pink, DMC 151 (not what is shown in the first photo, as I changed my mind) floss, then attached the pink heart to the white with buttonhole stitch in white. Big mistake. Next time, I'll attach the pink heart before I work the embroidery on the white heart, so it's evenly spaced. On the piece of felt for the back, I whip stitched the Peltex® to the heart. This will help keep the pins from poking through the bottom.

I then used buttonhole stitch to join the two hearts, stuffed it lightly with Polyfil, and stitched the opening closed.

Oops! I forgot to rinse off the blue markings before stuffing it! So I threw it into the dryer. It came out fine. Cute, isn't it?