Hi fellow quilters. Another Wednesday spins around. Time for my weekly Quilters Quarters Newsletter. I feel I’m on a slippery slide to Christmas, with sew much to do…. sew little time!!

This is the second newsletter that contains instructions for a small Secret Santa quilting present for you to create for your quilting friends. It is an extremely simple gift to make, but a very effective present to give to a quilter. In fact I make about a dozen of them at a time and have them on hand for all sorts of occasions including birthdays, thankyous, Hi I’m thinking of you etc. So here are the instructions for my “Petite Pincushion”.

Petite Pincushion

• You will need a bottle top lid from a soda bottle. I drink a certain kind of soda water that comes in a bottle with a black lid. I use these bottle caps all the time, as black goes with any colour fabric. You’ll need a 5” square of patchwork fabric. I often use dark jewel coloured fabric as it looks very dramatic against the black base. Some PVA glue and a little cushion stuffing, matching thread to the fabric and a needle.

• Cut the fabric square into a circle by rounding off the square edges.

• With needle and thread doubled in the eye of the needle, stitch a ¼” running stitch about ¼” inside the circle of fabric. No need to turn in a hem, you’re not going to see the raw edge.

• Using about a handful of stuffing, place it in the centre of your circle of fabric and gently pull the running stitches up to enclose the stuffing and make a round “mushroom” shaped pincushion pad.

• Tighten the running stitches so they won’t come undone.

• Squeeze a big dab of PVA glue in the bottle cap, put the pincushion inside the cap, raw edges down, and press down to make the “mushroom” shape sitting even inside the cap.

Leave for 24 hours to dry. Ta daaa, a gorgeous little pincushion, ideal for little sewing cases. I often put a few appliqué pins into the pincushion for my quilting friend.

I’m sure you have some great inexpensive ideas for making Secret Santa gifts for quilters. Would you mind sharing them with a few others? Please go to the Forum site and add to the list of great ideas. Here’s the link:
http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=43

My most recent article on the BellaOnline Quilting website, addresses the question a students expectation of attending a workshop. We are always aware of the tutor and quilt shop expectations via its Rules of Workshop Attendance, but what about the student’s expectations of the tutor and quilt shop? I’ve had some interesting feedback via my email address and forum website – thanks to those quilters who have made a comment. Here's the link to my latest article from the Quilting site at BellaOnline.com. http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art799.asp

Please visit Quilting.bellaonline.com for even more great articles and content about Quilting.

Have fun making the Petite Pincushion and let me know how you go. So till next time have fun quilting!
Cheerio for now

Judie Bellingham
Editor, Quilting, BellaOnline