Canvas Sewing pin cushion and caddy

I recently started sewing again and was thinking that I needed a pin cushion and a little garbage bin to thrown out scarps of material and strands of threads. After googling for a while, I came across something that caught my eye. So I thought – why not give it a go? – and here is what I came up with. – shares Mona Leonard about her extremely functional sewing project.

You will need:
Canvas Corp cotton canvas by the yard
Sewing machine, needle, scisors, thread

Pincushion: Cut one 9″ x 10″ rectangles.
Straps: Cut two 4″ x 3 1/2″ rectangles
Bag: Cut one 17 1/2″ x 11″ rectangle.

Fold the straps in half and sew a 1/2″ seam. Place the straps 1.5″ from each side of the pincushion piece on one of the 9″ long sides. Fold right sides together, sandwiching the two straps inside. Sew the pincushion shut, leaving about 3″ open on one of the short sides so that you can turn it right side out. Trim the corners a bit but not too close. Then simly turn it the right side up.

Here I used a silhouette and cut out some viny to decorate my bag and the top of my cushion. i then realized i needed to lighten up the top of my pin cushion. I then adhered a piece of canvas on top of the jeans so I could easily heat press a small design on it.

Fold thePress the seam open and move it to the center like you did above for the straps. Sew the bottom seam. bag in half right sides together. Sew the side seam. Make your thread catcher basket bottom by creating a triangle where the side seam meets the bottom. Your triangle should be 1 1/2″ wide with the seam flattened open. Mark with a pencil and sew across the bottom of the triangle. Turn the bag right side out to see how it creates a soft bottom..

To make the bag lining. Basically you do the same thing here as the bag outside with one important difference: You leave a hole in the side seam so that you can turn all of this stuff rightside out. Like the bag outside fold right sides together. But instead of sewing the entire seam, starting from the top, sew 4″ of the side seam. Backstitch.

Attaching pin cushion to bag. Line up the pincushion straps on the back of the bag. The back of the bag should be facing (touching) the back of the straps (so in other words, the seam-side of the bag and the seam-side of the straps should be touching each other).

So your bag is right side out and your lining is right side in. This is going to sound weird, but put your bag inside your lining matching up the back seams, and pin. See how the right sides are together? Eventually you’re going to pull this through the lining hole that you made. Make sure your straps are tucked between the lining outside and lining inside. Sew all the way around to attach the bag outside to its lining.

So while this step is optional, it helps your thread catcher bag stay open and generally makes the whole thing look nicer. Cut a 17″ piece of plastic clothes line using wire cutters. Make a circle with the clothes line and secure raw edges with a piece of tape. Slip the circle inside the lining hole and work it up to the top of the bag. Secure with pins. Then sew around the bag under the wire.

Next step is simply adding weight and stuffing the pin cushion.
I used a piece of steel to add the weight and filled the rest of pin cushion using stuffing.

Life is SEW good!!!

Make sure to visit Mona on her crafty adventures on her blog and Instagram.

Happy sewing!

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