Sunny Pincushion Tutorial

Pattern: Made in K-Town by Barbara

Please respect my rights as designer: do not sell, share, translate, or publish any parts of this pattern (including pictures) online or elsewhere without my permission. Do not claim this pattern as your own. Feel free to sell the finished items you’ve made from my pattern! If you do, a link-back to my blog www.made-in-k-town.blogspot.de would be great.
Thank you! 

Material:

I used 4 different colors of Catania by Schachenmayer and a 2.5mm hook. Make sure you’ll work with a similar yarn and a 2 – 2.5mm hook, otherwise you’ll end up having a monster cushion :) You can use up to 7 different colors if you want to. You’ll also need some fabric and stuffing material for the inner cushion and a little decorative button (optional).

Some General Notes:

For this pattern I use US crochet terms. We’ll need the following stitches: chain stitch (ch), slip stitch (sl st), single crochet (sc), half double crochet (hdc), double crochet (dc), and treble (tr).

I did not write down the chains at the beginning of each round: for the first stitch in every round, work chains (first tr = 4ch; first dc = 3ch; first hdc = 2ch) or, when working with a new color (rounds 2-5), start with a “standing stitch” i.e. join the new color with a slip knot or a simple loop on your hook and just work the first tr/dc/hdc/sc as usual.

Unless otherwise stated, join rounds with a sl st.

I’d be ready to start now, you too? Okay, let’s go:

 

Front Part:

1st Round: Start with a sliding loop (or “magic ring”) and work (2dc, 1ch) 8x inside the loop, fasten off (8 dc2-groups)

2nd Round (new color): work (4dc, 1ch) in every ch1-space, fasten off.

3rd Round (new color): work (1hdc, 1 long hdc, 1hdc, 3ch) in every ch1-space, fasten off. For the long hdc, work a hdc as usual but insert the hook not into the ch1-space, but into the second of the 2dc of the first round and draw up a long loop to the height of your current working round. Your circle might ruffle a bit now (mine does), but don’t worry – this won’t matter in the end.

4th Round (new color): work (6tr, 1ch) in every ch3-space, fasten off.

5th Round (new color): work 1sc in every tr, and 2sc in every ch1-space (64 sc), do not fasten off!

6th Round: work 1sc in every sc without further increasing (64 sc), fasten off, then weave in all the loose ends and sew your button into the middle.

Back Side:

Unfortunately, I’ve got no stitch-by-stitch pattern for the back, because here I work intuitively. The goal is to crochet with sc a circle (flat or slightly cupped) that has exactly the size of the front part and 64 sc in the last round.

I’ll try to guide you through this with some ideas:

Start with a sliding loop and work 6sc inside the loop. As a rough rule of thumb, you have to increase 6 sc per round in the beginning.

Later (After the fifth round is good, there you should have 30 sc) you should go down to 5 increases per round, and after a while to 4 or only 3 or 2 increases per round – you should frequently count the number of your stitches and compare the size of your circle with the size of your finished front part.

To avoid a hexagon shape, make sure you vary the spot where you increase. You can join the rounds with a sl st, I prefer working a spiral because I don’t like the visible “seam” of the slip stitches. I finish the spiral with a sl st into the next sc.

The Padding:

Take a piece of fabric and cut out two circles the size of your crocheted circles (plus some extra millimeters for the seam).

Sew the fabric circles together (leaving a little gap), turn it inside out, fill it with batting very tight (!) and close the gap

The Finish:

Now it’s time to bring it all together: Join a new color right above the little space between any 6tr-group and crochet your circles (right sides facing out!) together with sc. Half way around, slip in the padding, and go on with sc until the cushion is closed.

For the next round  (the petals), make 1ch, then 1sc into the same stitch, skip 2 or 3 stitches and – without starting chains – work 10 tr (petal) in the stitch right above the middle of the 6tr-group. Skip 2 or 3 stitches and work 1sc above the little gap. Again, skip some stitches and work your next petal (=10tr) above the middle of the next 6tr-group.

Of course there is no exact middle stitch to a group of six, so you have to try which stitch looks best for your petal. Sorry for being a little vague here. Continue this pattern (sc, skip a little, petal, skip a little…) until the end. Fasten off, weave in the ends, et voilà…

Congratulations, you’ve finished your first Sunny Pincushion!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my first tutorial, if you’ve got questions or find any mistakes, please let me know! Of course I’d like to see the pincushions you make, so feel free to write a comment and post the link to your pictures!

Thanks for your visit in K-town,

Barbara