You will need…

• 0.5 m (0.55 yards) of silk or satin. Nineteenth-century crafters used champagne, white, and light shades of pink or blue. Any synthetic slippery material can be substituted for the silk but may be difficult to work with. 

• Steel dressmaker’s pins (26 mm x 0.69 mm) or sequin/lills pins (13 mm). Look for ones that have flat metal heads instead of plastic ones. We used around 350 pins to write “Welcome Little Stranger” and 650 pins to write “Bless the Babe and Save the Mother.”

• Fine sewing needle and two spools of thread. One spool should match the colour of your slippery material and will be used to sew the pincushion. The other should contrast it and will be used to make a pinning guide. 

• 0.5 m (0.55 yards) of lightweight cotton in a shade similar to the silk. An old pillowcase or bed sheet would work well.

• 0.65 m (0.7 yards) of fringe, lace, or wide ribbon for trimming

• Approximately 1.15 kgs of oat or wheat bran

• Standard sewing pins for pinning 

• Tweezers (optional)

• Paper and pencil

• Tape measure

• Scissors

• Funnel

PART 1: THE CUSHION

Step 1: Preparing the Cotton

From your cotton, cut a long rectangle (approximately 37 cm by 13.5 cm). 

Step 2: Sewing the Cotton Sack

Fold the piece of cotton in half with the right sides facing each other (one facing up and one facing down). Leaving a 2 cm seam allowance so that your cushion is around 16.5 cm by 11.5 cm large, sew along the three open sides using a running stitch. (To learn more about the running stitch and the whip stitch used below, check out our Broderie Anglaise tutorial.)

Before you sew the cushion closed, leave a space at the end large enough to fit your hand into. Using your fingers or a pair of tweezers, reach through the gap to turn your new creation inside out. Use the eraser end of a pencil to poke out the corners if needed.

Step 3: Stuffing the Cotton Sack

You should now have an empty cotton sack. Insert the narrow end of your funnel into the sack’s opening so that it rests between the two layers of cotton. Pour or scoop wheat bran into the wide end of the funnel until the cushion reaches your desired plumpness. Make sure not to underfill it – it’s much easier to stick pins into a well-stuffed cushion.

Step 4: Preparing the Pincushion Cover

From your slippery material, cut out two rectangles measuring 18.5 cm by 13.5 cm.

Lay out one piece of the material with the shiny side facing up. Pin the bottom of the lace, ribbon, or fringe trim along the edges of this rectangle’s 2 cm seam allowance. (The decorative edges of the trim should be facing the centre of the fabric on all sides.) When you reach a corner, make a small fold with the base of the trim to create a corner.

Step 5: Trimming the Pincushion Cover

Sew the base of the trim to the single layer of slippery material. *We do not recommend trying to be efficient by skipping this step and sewing the trim between the two pieces of fabric right away.* Remove the pins. 

Put the second piece of slippery material on top of the piece with the sewn-on trim. As with the cotton, the right sides should be facing each other on the inside to form a fabric-trim-fabric sandwich. Pin the pieces together or pinch them with your fingers, and sew the pieces together along three edges, leaving a 2 cm seam allowance so that your cushion is around 16.5 cm by 11.5 cm large.

Using the seam allowance as a guide, fold over the slippery material’s edge that does not have trim attached. Sew along the fold to create a smooth edge.

Step 6: Sewing up the Pincushion Cover

Turn the slippery pillowcase right side out using the gap. Again, poke the corners out if necessary. Squeeze your stuffed cotton cushion into the pillowcase and close up the opening with a running or whip stitch. You now have a complete pincushion ready for pinning!

PART 2: THE PINS

Step 1: Preparing your Message

Pick a message that you would like your cushion to convey. We mentioned a couple of common eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mottos in the introduction, but other popular choices included the phrase “welcome little stranger,” blessings for the infant and/or the mother, short biblical quotations, and lines from secular poetry. Choose whatever you’d like! Write your message on a piece of paper exactly as you would like it to appear on your cushion. Write your message using the font, letter size, and layout you plan to use on your cushion.

An Excerpt from Joe Diemer’s Critical Crafting Reflection:

“I chose the phrase “welcome little stranger” for my pincushion largely because I didn’t have any particular newborn in mind when I was making it. I knew that my pincushion would be a display piece, so I chose a classic motto that was strongly associated with layette pincushions (and childbirth more generally) in later Victorian literature and journalism. I realized partway through, though, that my detachment from any real infant recipient was not so far off from the experience of Victorian crafters. The riskiness of pregnancy in the period encouraged a certain level of disengagement from the ‘little stranger.’ In fact, pincushions and other articles in the layette were not customarily gifted until after the birth to avoid bringing bad luck upon either the mother or the child.”

Read Joe’s full reflection by clicking here!

Step 2: Transferring your Message onto the Pincushion

Count the letters in each line of the message to find their approximate centre points. For example, in the word “Welcome,” the centre runs through the middle of the “c.” This step will help to ensure that your message is aligned on the cushion. Using your tape measure, find the lengthwise halfway point of the cushion and mark it with a pin on both long edges, ensuring that the trim hides the pin marks. Wrap or tie your contrastingly coloured thread between these two pins so that you have a vertical line dividing the cushion in half. Repeat to find the horizontal midpoint.

Working from the centre outwards, pin your message into the cushion. Try to place your pins as close together as possible without overlap and avoid removing pins once you’ve put them in place. Slippery materials like silk and satin tend not to hide pin holes very well!

Remove the coloured threads and the pins that secured them. Now, your pincushion is complete!

An Excerpt from Kalea Furmanek-Raposo’s Critical Crafting Reflection:

“I found the process frustrating in some cases and enjoyable in others—with many struggles over where and how to attach the trim by hand and my inability to spell becoming an issue when placing the finicky pins. These pincushions probably contain miniscule amounts of my blood, sweat, and tears. However, once I got used to the motions of guiding the thread through layers of silk and discovered techniques to avoid pricking myself on each pin, I found the meditativeness of message-bearing pincushion making as absorbing as I do most hands-on crafts (my cat, as usual, also enjoyed sitting on my supplies).”

Read Kalea’s full reflection by clicking here!

A Few Mistakes:

A Note on Storage

Since this cushion is stuffed with bran, there is a chance that it will attract bugs or rodents. To avoid unwanted visitors, store or display the cushion up high.

If you decide to try out this tutorial for yourself, send us pictures of your results on Instagram @crafty_victorians! 

Contributors

Joe Diemer