It was my friend Mairead’s birthday, and she simply LOVES sewing. She makes the best, most amazing fancy-dress costumes ever. Plus, she is as big a fan of cute kitsch as you could ever find, and she loves cakes, too. So I thought there could be no better gift than a crochet cupcake pincushion!

I made this one from two different patterns I found online. The top is from this pattern on the Bittersweet blog, and the cupcake base is made from another pattern that is no longer available online* (sadly). But this one from Good Housekeeping is pretty close. I liked the curly icing from the Bittersweet pattern, but wanted a stable base for the pincushion rather than a curved one. My other variation was to put a little piece of felt that had a 2p coin glued to it in the bottom, to weight the pincushion to keep it from toppling over when using it. I also looked all around to find some pearlised pins to put into the top – I wanted to make sure they looked like sprinkles or those little metallic sugar balls you find in cake decorating shops.

The coolest bit about this gift is that loads of Mairead’s friends had decided to group together and buy her a joint gift of sewing lessons at a London costumier, so my little pincushion present couldn’t have been more appropriate!

* If I can find the printout of the pattern I used, I will post it, because it really is good and I know that the original author said anyone could use it (I will be sure to credit if I can!).

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I have known Simon for years, and over the years, I am sure that he has acquired pretty much everything a man could need or want. Well, that’s not because he is some kind of stuff-hoarder, but maybe it’s just my impression because I could not think of a thing to get him. I find it hard to do gifts for men in general. Even harder is trying to come up with some kind of crafty thing for men. So I thought long & hard and then I figured that every man needs a place to put his keys and wallet when he comes home from work. What could be better for this that a sturdy felted bowl?

I made this one from crochet, which is not really how you are supposed to make felted things, but there you go. I think knitting rather than crochet probably makes a smoother felt, but as crochet is thicker and sturdier, I figured why not give it a go? I pretty much followed the same pattern as I did when I made the recycled jeans bowl – which is really easy: just crochet in the round and increase when you want to make the bowl sides go up & out, decrease when you want to make the opening narrower. Anyone could do it.

I picked nice manly colours and used Rowan Super Chunky wool. He loved it and it goes well with his decor. Yay – now what will I make him next year ?!?

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