Create a Charming Friendship Star Pincushion with our Step-by-Step Guide
This small sewing project is perfect for using up scraps and practicing your quilting skills. With this free sewing pattern, you can learn how to make a Friendship Star Quilt block pincushion.
Pin cushions are such a great project. They’re brilliant for using fabric scraps, quick to make, and perfect for yourself or as a handmade gift. You can never have too many pin cushions!
This top of the pincushion features a Friendship Star patchwork block. This seemed fitting as quilting can be so much about community and friendships historically (and still today). Plus, this cute star block has the perfect center square for some fussy cutting.
Materials Needed
- Fabric scraps (in three contrasting colors/prints)
- Rotary cutter and mat
- Quilting ruler
- Sewing machine
- Thread
- Iron and ironing board
- Batting
- Stuffing
- Needle and thread for hand sewing
Friendship Star Pincushion
This small sewing project is perfect for using up scraps and practicing your quilting skills. With this free sewing pattern, you can learn how to make a Friendship Star Quilt block pincushion.
Equipment
supplies
- 1 scrap Fussy Cutting Fabric or charm square; at least 3" x 3"
- 1 scrap Main Fabric large scrap or charm square; at least 5" x 5"
- 1 Fat Eighth Background Fabric
- 1 Fat Eighth Light Backing Fabric
- 1 square Batting 7½” square
- 1 small package Stuffing for Pincushion you can also fill the pincushion with walnut shells or a combination of both.
Instructions
Cutting:
- From Fussy Cutting Fabric cut 2½” sq (1).
- From Main Fabric cut 2½” sq (4).
- From Background Fabric cut 2½” sq (8) and 6½” sq (1).
- From Light Backing Fabric cut 7½” sq (1).
- From Wadding cut cut 7½” sq (1).
Construction:
- Use a ¼” seam allowance unless otherwise stated.
- Start by making the half square triangles. Take one Main Fabric 2½” square and draw a diagonal line onto the wrong side.
- Pin this square, right sides together, to one of the Background Fabric 2½” squares.
- Sew along the drawn line from step 1.
- Trim away the excess fabric, leaving a ¼” seam allowance, then press the diagonal seam towards the Main Fabric. [TOP TIP: for more accurate pressing, press the half-square triangle seam before trimming away the excess fabric and use the square underneath as a guide; this helps to avoid stretching the fabric out of shape.]If necessary trim and square up to 2 1/2" x 2 1/2".
- Repeat steps 1 to 4 to create three more half square triangles.
- Take one Background Fabric 2½” square, one half square triangle (positioned with the diagonal seam running top left to bottom right and with the Main Fabric below the Background Fabric), and another Background Fabric 2½” square.
- Sew together in this order, then press the seams towards the Background Fabric squares.
- Take one half square triangle (positioned with the diagonal seam running bottom left to top right and with the Main Fabric below the Background Fabric), the Fussy Cutting Fabric 2½” square, and another half square triangle (positioned with the diagonal seam running bottom left to top right and with the Main Fabric above the Background Fabric).
- Sew together in this order then press the seams towards the center square.
- Take one Background Fabric 2½” square, one half square triangle (positioned with the diagonal seam running top left to bottom right and with the Main Fabric above the Background Fabric), and another Background Fabric 2½” square.
- Sew them together in this order, then press the seams towards the Background Fabric squares.
- Now sew together the three rows from steps 6 to 8, nesting the seams to create a more accurate patchwork block.
- Press the seams open.
Finishing:
- Make a quilt sandwich. Place the Light Backing Fabric 7½” square with the wrong side facing up, add the Wadding square, and then finally add the patchwork block with the right side facing up. Baste together using your desired method.
- Quilt your patchwork block. You can quilt this in any way you like but for a pin cushion I prefer quite dense quilting. I have quilted vertical straight lines with ¼” spacing. I left a ½” space at the left and right edges of the block (because I didn’t want to have a line of quilting in the same spot as one of the pin cushion’s construction seams).
- Trim away the excess batting and backing fabric and square up the block if required.
- Take the Background Fabric 6½” square and pin it, right sides together, to the quilted block.
- Sew around the edges, leaving about a 2½” gap in the middle of the bottom edge. Then, clip the corners to reduce bulk.
- Turn the pincushion the right way out and carefully poke out the four corners.
- Fill with your choice of stuffing. I’ve used a mix of polyester fiber fill and crushed walnut shells.
- Hand-sew the gap closed to finish!
Love this tutorial? Get the behind the scenes on Instagram
About the Designer
Amy lives in the north of England with her husband and son. When she’s not sewing and quilting, Amy can usually be found baking or reading. You can find her on Instagram @amyatthegate
