Romantic pincushion in a tin

This is an easy no-sew, no-glue pincushion for keeping needles and pins or displaying a vintage hat pin collection. A simple tin gets a romantic transformation with some lace, tulle and bling jewellery.




Materials and tools needed for the project: scissors, small empty tin, fabric and tulle scraps, ribbons, filling, vintage jewellery pieces or beads, rhinestones, etc.




Making process:

1. Cut a round piece of fabric with a diameter at least twice the size of the tin. (I used lace and a second thicker fabric underneath.)
2. Put some filling in the middle of the fabric, gather the edges and tie with a ribbon or thread. Tuck it into the tin with the tied side downwards.
3. Cut a round piece of tulle and put the tin in the middle of this piece. Gather the edges and put a ribbon around it. Arrange the tulle or cut the edges smoother, if necessary.
4. Stick some bling jewellery pieces into the ribbon knot. Voilà!

No holidays for kitchen maids

Those old style wooden pegs are well suited for fastening all sorts of half full food sacks. I thought it to be more fun if they looked like real kitchen staff.




After a short training period, I'm sure, I will not be needed in the kitchen at all. The three girls can work out a schedule among themselves, and each gets to be in charge of one meal a day.




And they always work with a smile.




These other type of clothespins come handy, too, to snap smaller bags and packages.

Teddy ready to sail

A little playtime in summer is allowed, I hope. After all, the yarn stash is all sorted out and detangled and ready for the autumn season. Some leftovers found their way to this seaman's sweater, teddy can now enjoy the summer and the sea.
The naked glass buoy got a rope net around it and does not roll off anymore.

Rosy times ahead

There can never be too many small vessels at home for this and that, especially in the craft room. After taking a look at the expanding tin and napkin pile, it was quite clear, what sort of experiment should be carried out. (And there was a big sale at haberdashery). So these rosy lacy cans were born.



The tins were painted first, then roses cut from napkins positioned and moistened with water using a brush, and then three layers of mod podge applied. Finally, the cans were trimmed with lace and twine to protect against sharp tin edges.

Cotton baskets to put things in

There can never be too many vessels at home, where to put smalls things in. These white baskets with 'woven' pattern are knitted in the round almost like hats. Firmness is not their strongest quality, when empty, so all the more reason to fill them up.

Shades of grey

When there are many small things to keep organised, there is a need for many small drawers! Those antique cabinets with lots of drawers are just perfect, but really hard to find. Now I discovered a line of these small drawer cabinets in a local hardware store, adopted one at once and dressed it in shades of grey.




Only a few days ago this was just an unfinished birch wood cabinet manufactured by Zeller Present.




After dusting and wiping, a coat of dark grey paint was applied. That was a mix of beige and blue interior paint leftovers with some black acrylic art paint added to make it darker.




The next treatment was painting the exterior surfaces intentionally unevenly with lighter shades of grey and beige using both brush and sponge for a distressed look.




Last but not least - some stampings with rubber stamp and that darker grey paint again.




Further decorations and varnishing I had had in mind, seemed redundant now. The surface was really nicely and chalkpaintly matte, so this piece was declared finished. Poor thing looks so much older now.

Linen table linen

It had never occurred to me to knit a doily before, but it did now. Probably because of this one lonely skein of thin linen yarn calling out from the stash and the curiosity to see this material in a finished form.
My dream is to knit a large tablecloth designed by Herbert Niebling one day, for testing purposes, this small round doily with 40 cm diameter should be sufficient, though.




The pattern is from Burda Stricklehrbuch and the doily was small enough to be knitted on double pointed needles (2 mm). Knitting was quite easy and I managed to learn a couple of new tricks on the way, e.g. circle cast on, crochet bind-off, how to handle double yarn overs.


The yarn used is a lace weight linen named Midara Linas, shade No. 650. Approximately half a skein required, only 23 grams.

Heart for the country

With weather getting darker and colder, the cravings for cosy and warming home accessories grow stronger. And the sewing machine is a good quick solution for a change, when most things take forever to make. These cuddly country style hearts were accomplished in no time and now they're just hanging around, bringing out smiles with their funny shape.

Featured in a book, Lovebook

One of my knitted home decoration accessories has landed in Dawanda's new Winter 2011/2012 Lovebook booklet, this is really exciting.
The item in question is this beige simple knitted pencil cup cozy with cables:




The booklet is printed in three languages and it is also available as a pdf file. My cup cozy can be admired on page 19 of the English Lovebook, on page 23 of the German Lovebook and on page 14 of the French Lovebook.

Summer in the sewing room

A small wall hanging object can exist both as a decoration in sewing theme and a storage solution to keep all the small tools at hand.
The alternative mission of the hat is to serve as a pincushion, while the bag can hold small scissors, safety pins, thread spools etc.




The piece is made of linen and all sewn by hand, the wires at the top and bottom give it a good hold. Seems like the only thing without a clear purpose is the dress.

Wire mailbox

This is a shabby style mailbox to hang by the door, where anything that arrived by post or anything that needs to be taken to the post office can be temporarily stored. Sort of a 2-in-1 incoming-outgoing box.
Made this out of wire in three different gauges using the design-as-you-go working style without a plan. The uneven paint cover makes it look really old and that is the key.

White cables and bobbles

And here is the completed cushion cover mentioned in the previous post:




And a matching (favourite item lately, can't seem to throw away any tin cans!) pencil cup cozy:

Needles kept warm

The needles and hooks got themselves a warm chunky cozy, this way they are always ready to work:

Felted decorations

Something small and woollen will bring home that country style cosiness, when there is snow outside and a lighted fireplace inside. That is the mood I was looking for with these needle-felted hanging decorations: