Pin Cushion Cup With Recycled Garment

by Pat Ruge

5 Materials

1 Hour

Easy

When I found these cups at a garage sale, I knew immediately what I wanted to do with them. I've already made several and given as gifts. My gift to you is this tutorial on how I did it.

This is the little lace cover-up that I purchased for 1/2 off at a local thrift shop that I will be using in the project. It has on open front, no buttons. If there is a category in this challenge for using the smallest piece of recycled fabric, I might have a chance to win, otherwise, probably not.

My inspiration piece was this "Golden Quilt" cup. I purchased them in two sizes - the tea cup size and the cappuccino size. I thought they were so cute.

The plate is something I had on hand as part of a set which had extra pieces. Using the desert plate seemed more proportional to the cappuccino cup. The brown circle fabric will be used under the lace to imply a "foamy cup of cappuccino". The white "bag" you see is filled with play sand. I use play sand because it is finer and it sharpens the pins as they go in and out. I just tied it up with a rubber band and plopped it into the cup, band side down.

Gather some cute little accessories. The small thread spools in variety of colors, the buttons , and the thimbles all come from the various collections I have on hand.

I hot glued the doily to the plate placing a dot of glue under the center and at each scallop. I also hot glued the cup to the doily/plate. Added the bag of sand and then layered the brown fabric top with lace and hot glue to hold in place. The top view shows the brown coming thru the lace. In addition, I added two layers of lace around the peripheral and finally the string pearls to hide any "imperfections".

Finally, the fun part. Bring in the accessories. The thimble I chose reads "Life is just a bowl of cherries". The hat pins and a few sewing pins and needles are added to the topper.