Pincushion Organiser and Thread Catcher

When you're an avid sewist it goes without saying that you, your family, pets and home are always covered in thread.  As I take the lift down from my apartment I'm often embarrassed to discover there's even thread scattered on the corridor carpet outside my front door - how did it get there?!!! And I feel bad for my husband who regularly removes thread from his suit trousers when he's at work.

All this changed last July when I went to Quilting By The Lake and was introduced to the wonders of taping a paper bag to the edge of my sewing table.  How come it took 50 years for me to discover something as simple as this would stop my life being covered in thread?

Last week the light bulb went on for me; heck sewing is my life and I'm pretty sure I deserve something better than a brown paper bag taped to the end of my sewing table - so there and then I set about making myself a thread catcher.

Rather than reinvent the wheel for such a simple object I did a quick internet image search for thread catchers and over and over again my favourite was one by Elizabeth Hartman @Oh Fransson.  I took a look at her website and was delighted that she has a free project tutorial to make the Pincushion Organiser.  Happy Dancing!

What should/could have taken minutes took me an evening and into the next day - picking fabrics - boy it can be hard to choose fabrics for yourself.  I don't know about you but I find it really easy to choose fabrics for others but for me, well there's simply too much choice and so much I love.

Finally, I chose the following:

"Line" Edges collection by Laura Gunn for Michael Miller Fabrics

Confetti Dots - Dear Stella - pink

Liberty Art Fabrics Lifestyle - Bloomsbury collection - Catherine and Bell

red felt

covered button from stash

Aurifil thread #4182 - medium turquoise

And this is my review Oh Fransson's Pincushion Organiser project:

The pincushion is long and the position of my sewing machine over at the right-hand side of my sewing table means the left-hand edge of the pincushion and the thread catcher are pretty much in front of me as I sew.

My Tip: if you'll have the same issue where you want to use your pincushion organiser sew the thread catcher hanging loop to the right-hand side of the organiser rather than on the left.

You can see in the pic above that the pincushion slides off my sewing table.  This is partly due to the shiny surface finish of my table and partly to the lack of weight in the pincushion to hold it in place.

My Tips: add more rice to the pincushion insert to increase the weight and/or sew a piece of adhesive velcro to the underside of the pincushion that will be directly against your sewing table (not the piece that will lie on top of the organiser - this will make sense when you are making the pincushion) and then attach the opposite side of the adhesive velcro to your sewing table.  

I've solved these issues for me by moving my pincushion organiser off onto my ironing surface to my right - it's right next to me so still super easy to catch threads and reach for all the necessary notions and the fabric no longer slides against the metallic ironing surface.

Not called for in the pattern but I added a row of top stitching to both side edges of the red felt to hold the pressed seams and create a flatter neater finish.

My Tip: I didn't close the seam on the back of the pincushion pocket,  The gap isn't visible and the opening will allow me to easily remove the flannel rice infill to wash the organiser. 

Overall I think it's a great project and I'm super pleased with it.  I'll definitely make it again as a gift for other sewists and incorporate the changes I've detailed.

Yep, it sure beats a brown paper bag and life's so much better when my thread's confined to my projects and not being worn by everyone I love ;D

If you'd like to make your own version of the
Pincushion Organiser by Elizabeth Hartman @Oh Fransson (for personal use only)
you can click through to the project here.


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