African Violet Pincushions & GIVEAWAY! *CLOSED*

We found these sweet African Violet pincushions that verybigjen makes. She makes all different varieties of African Violets. She made them out of soda bottle tops, but we wanted a pincushion that was a little bigger so we followed the same steps using baby food jars. They came together very quickly. You can use any colors of felt that you like.
Here is how we made ours ( but if you don't feel like making one yourself, how about winning one of ours? Check out the giveaway details at the end of this post! Sorry...we know it's a long one):


What you need:

• felt for the flowerpot, dirt, leaves, and flowers
• small jar
• embroidery floss in brown, green and yellow
• stuffing
  

To make your pattern, trace around the bottom of the jar. Cut out a piece of light brown felt for the bottom of the pot using this circle.

Cut out a circle of dark brown felt for the dirt about 2 1/2 times as big as the lid of the jar.

Cut a piece of light brown felt for the side of the pot that reaches about an inch over the top of the jar and all the way around the jar. (should be a rectangle)

Your pot pieces should look like this.

Sew the bottom to the side of the pot using two strands out of the six of your brown embroidery floss.

Now sew up the side of your pot.

Fold down the top to make your pot. Stuff your jar.

Now sew a quick running stitch around your dirt circle. Pull the thread to make a cup.

Stuff the cup with fiber fill or scraps of your felt.

Now place dirt over the top of your jar and tie the thread closed.

Pull the top of the pot over the edge of the dirt.

Now sew the pot to the dirt using the embroidery floss. You can also sew the bottom of the rim of the pot. (2 strands)

For the leaves you need to cut 2 squares of dark green. The squares should be an inch bigger than the pot on all sides.

Now cut four slits in each square like this. This will be four leaves.

Round out each to make four leaf shapes.

Sew the first set of leaves onto the dirt. Pull the stitches tight to cur and shape the leaves.

Then sew on the second set of leaves. Pull these tight as well to make them look more lifelike.

Now for the flowers. Cut three squares of each shade of purple. Each square should be about an 1 1/2 inch square.

Cut these the same way as the leaves.

Round out each petal.

Do the same for all six pieces.

Lay out your flowers like this.

Using yellow embroidery floss (all six strands) sew the flowers onto the leaves.Spread the stitch out a little like we did hear.

Tie the floss tight. This will shape the flower. Snip the floss leaving about a centimeter of each end.

Do the same with the other two flowers.

And you are done!!

Since this happens to be our 100th post, we want to offer our fabulous readers a chance to win this pretty pincushion (international entries are of course welcome - we love all our readers!)! And how about we throw in the six sparkly decorative pins you see below? All you have to do is leave us a comment by Sunday Feb. 14th and you'll be entered! Want another chance? Followers of our blog get a second entry - just leave us a second, separate comment and let us know you are following! A winner will be chosen by Random.org , and announced on Monday the 15th.

Good luck!