Japanese pin cushion bowls have become popular recently and as it turns out, despite their tiny cuteness they are really functional.
Plus they have that Wabi-Sabi (happy-imperfect) handmade zakka (heart-smile) quality about them. I love those concepts.
Actually I also love using those words!
The one below is made with tiny scraps of dyed yarn fabrics pieced together.
What follows is not exactly directions, it's more my little wabi-sabi adventure.
But if you are a maker it may be useful - or maybe just amusing...
First you'll need some bits:
I used a piece of already stitched fabric (did I mention the first great thing about these pin bowls? They use small scraps of fabric, always a desirable quality in a project to me!) Then scissors, needle, thread, stuffing, and a tiny bowl.
Note: In making future bowls I figured out that these little wood bowls need a piece of fabric 5" x 5" to make the cushion ball the right size for the bowl. Draw your circle to the edges.
But that was future bowls, for this one I just went by 'guess and by golly'!
I used a water glass to draw a circle on the fabric for cutting a circle which I guessed to be the right size. Then I used sashiko thread to stitch a running stitch around the circle (because it is the thread I had close by and I didn't want to get up and look for some other thread :-)). Any thread strong enough to pull up without breaking will be fine.
Below is a different pin bowl being made.
Next I pulled the sashiko thread up until I had a sort of pouch and I stuffed it full of polyester stuffing.
And then things went a little sideways...
Once the fabric cushion was stuffed and round and tied closed, I intended to simply glue it into the bowl with E6000 but it turned out the bowl was bigger than my round ball. Hmmm.
I guess this is why other people use patterns...
I ended up gluing a layer of batting into the bottom of the bowl and then gluing the fabric ball on top of that. It would have been better to have made a bigger fabric ball in the first place but this worked fine once the glue set.
For later bowls I cut the fabric circle from a 5" square so that the ball it made was a snug fit and continued as follows below.
When you pull the running stitching up and stuff your fabric to make a ball, there will be a messy excess of fabric lump on the bottom. I tied it shut, trimmed off the worst of it, and roughly flattened it before pushing it firmly into the bowl to see if all was good. Here is a photo of the bottom of one being closed up.( I could have trimmed this one but the fabric was soft and it didn't seem necessary.)
Then I removed it and spread glue around the sides of the bowl keeping it about 3/8" lower than the top edge. Finally I replaced the fabric ball in the bowl and used elastics to hold it in place while it dried. I wanted to be sure the fabric stayed tight against the top edge of the bowl.
(The two photos above are from other pin bowls I made later. They are rather addictive to make!).)
Here are finished results:
Of all the pin bowls I've made this one and the blue pieced one are my favourites, but I started taking pottery lessons about a year ago and am working on making some tiny pottery pin bowls. The one at the top in this blog is my first pottery one :-)
Here is another: (Ignore the bent needles- I took this photo for Broken Needle Day)
Final note: You can get E6000 glue in a hardware store. As well as fabric-to-wood it is also good for gluing fabric-to-metal for clasp purse frames.
Enjoy your project making!
Susan