The Devil's in the Details

Why is it always the little projects that go awry and take F-O-R-E-V-E-R to finish. When I signed up for the scrappy pincushion swap a few weeks ago I thought the short turn around time would be no big deal because I thought it would be an easy swap and something small should be pretty fun and quick to finish, right? Boy was I wrong. My partner doesn't have the pincushion yet so I don't want to give to much away but she/he asked for a Heather Bailey type pincushion in either red and aqua or pink and they really wanted it stuffed with Lizard Litter. Here's what I came up with:

















At first I was really stumped by how I was going to get pink to go together with red and aqua but then I figured out I could just make it reversible. On days when you want red and aqua you can have that side up and when you get tired of it or want to mix it up a bit flip it over to the pink side. I personally like the red and aqua side better but I think it's because my hand stitching is on the pink side and I think the ribbon is a little tight on one corner of the pink side and makes it a little bunchy. I used gray for the sides because well if you've been by here before you know I love gray. I was considering white for that part originally but I thought with the white ribbon it might be to much so I decided to throw just a tad bit of me in there and go for the gray. I used lizard litter for the stuffing which is really just crushed walnut shells. My only question on that is the smallest bag I could find was 9lbs and well it took less that 1/2 of 1 to fill this little pincushion. What am I going to do with almost 9lbs of crushed walnut shells? And no I'm not going to get a lizard. The fabric is Bliss by Camille and it is my new favorite. Of course the fabric won't be available until September but if you can't wait like me there is a small sampling of it in Moda's new Candy Bar. That's where I got mine, the other 1/2 will be made into hexagons of course. Okay so a few more things I learned along the way, Lizard Litter leaves a brownish dust on anything it touches so I had to take a damp cloth to the finished pincushion. Ribbon is not the easiest thing to sew with. I broke three doll makers needles trying to put that ribbon through the pincushion. Okay one was a tapestry needle but still. It was difficult to say the least. This little guy is going in the mail tomorrow and hopefully my partner will enjoy it.