Abbey Bag Giveaway Winner

To give and then not feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving. -Max Beerbohm

Today is the day to announce the winner of my giveaway. This was so fun for me and I am truly overwhelmed by the wonderful response! 68 individuals entered and every single comment was so kind and supportive. Bloggers are wonderful! I honestly wish that I had an Abbey Bag pincushion for every single one of you. You all know I only have one to give away, right? Because that is causing me a bit of anxiety. Well, anyway, noon is approaching, so I'd better get to it. Thank you to everyone who entered. The winner is . . .

Anna of Quiltmom's Journey!

What a nice giveaway- I love things that are handmade and I think the combo of a pincushion and bag for threads is very cute.
I saw your giveaway on Barb's blog. It is always nice to meet new to me bloggers- congratulations on reaching 200 posts.
Regards from a Western Canadian quilter,
Anna

Anna, I think you owe Barb a finder's fee of some sort .

Again, thank you to everyone who entered. If you would like to make your own, this is the pattern I used. It was pretty fast and easy peasy. I tweaked a couple of things, so here are my notes. If you have other questions, please feel free to leave a comment or send me an e-mail.

• I think my favorite part about these are the covered buttons on the top. They are so stinkin' cute and really fun to make! Sewing them on is the tricky part because you can't go easily through the shank on the back more than one time and keep the stitches tight. To solve this problem, I used five strands of thread on my really long needle {the 6" one, so it had a pretty big eye}, doubled it over {so I had ten strands} and went up through the pin cushion from the bottom, through the button shank and then back down through the pin cushion, pulling the threads tight and tying it in a square knot at the bottom. I figured that ought to hold.
• I used crushed walnut shells to fill the pincushions. It makes them nice and heavy and they keep their shape well. The bag of walnut shells I bought was enough to make five pincushions and I think I have enough left to make at least three more. The pattern suggests emery sand as an alternate filling, which is supposed to keep pins sharp. In my research I discovered that emery sand isn't really necessary because pins and needles today are plated and they don't rust or get dull like the old ones. In fact, emery sand is more likely to dull these new-fangled pins and needles.
• The instructions call for fusible fleece. I had a hard time translating that in my head to fusible batting, so I bought Pellon Peltex 71F. It was really stiff, which gave a nice shape to the flowers, but it made the bag stand at attention instead of being all puffy and cute. Once I figured out what I was doing, I stuck with the Peltex for the flower, but used a bit of Warm and Natural in the bag itself and just used a walking foot for stitching up that part {using what I had on hand instead of hunting down some fusible batting}.
• The instructions said to glue the pincushion to the little flower it sits on and also to glue the bag to the connector strip that attaches it to the flower. I wasn't sold on that idea, so I stitched the connector strip to the inside of the bag before I sewed the band around the top. I also sewed it on the bottom of the flower and then hand stitched the pincushion onto the flower. I thought that would be more secure and hold up better.
• The instructions call for rubberized shelf liner. This is another one that I had a hard time translating in my brain. I bought a stiff, plastic shelf liner thinking that it went in the bottom of the bag {between the liner and the outside} and that is what made the bag all puffy and open and cute. After I finished the first one, I realized that what they really wanted was the no-skid grip-pad kind of shelf liner. {Another der moment. I really did read through the instructions before I started collecting supplies}. I used glue to attach it to the bottom of the flower, covering up the stitches holding the pin cushion on and the end of the connector strip, finishing everything off nicely.