Sewing machine cover #2

Can you guess what it is yet? 

Oh, I told you in the title.  Well that spoilt that then.  I was asked by a friend to make her a sewing machine cover like the one I made for myself - see this post if you are at all interested. 

I made some changes this time.  Instead of using the DMC light effects thread, I used Perle Cotton number 5.  Well ladies, call me a heathen, call me anything you like, but I do not understand the hype about this thread.  It's pretty much like any other embroidery thread, just not stranded.  What am I missing?  Other bloggers rave about Perle Cotton.

I used all pink buttons this time.  On my own cover I used a mixture of pink and red from my stash, but I didn't have 6 of one and 7 of the other this time and had to buy a pack.  They had no nice ones in red at all in Hobbycraft so I made do with all pink.  The tape measure ribbon is different too.  On my machine I used some ribbon I'd bought from East of India but I didn't have enough left so I had to make do with this cheaper version from the craft show.

I'd also ran out of the blue spot Bliss fabric I used for my lining.  The only think I had to hand in sufficient quantities was Lily and Will yardage which I'd bought for dining room stuff.  It goes well enough.  This time my lining is MUCH better.  Confession?  I made a lining, remembered how big it was on the last version so made it smaller.  It was way too small!  I had to rip it out and start again.  This second version worked perfectly.  In fact, on this second go around the whole thing went like a dream, other than the lining issue and the 4 or 5 times I was merrily sewing when I realised my bobbin had run out about 10 minutes before!  I'm really happy with it.
I decided to pop in a little pincushion as an extra.  What follows is not a tutorial, but I did take some pictures along the way, just because! 

I made a 9-patch square from 2 inch Bliss squares.  Almost all the points match!  Wahoo!  I cut 4 strips of linen 5.5 x 2 inches and one square 5.5 inches.  I sewed the strips together to form the sides of the cushion.

I then sewed the sides to the top and this was tricky.  I hadn't thought about those corners.  I had to kind of lay them flat diagonally.  By the way - notice I press my seams away from each other.  I always do that.  Everyone else says not to but I read one blog where it said it was better and I find this way the seams of darker fabrics don't show through the lighter parts.

I turned it right side out with bated breath.... OK, so the corners are lacking in skill, but never mind!

And ta-da! One wrinkly, badly-sewed, badly-ironed pin cushion!   How do you iron things like this?  The turning inside out made the linen very wrinkly but I just couldn't iron it without making it worse!

Side view.  Hm.  I think I've made better!  Maybe I should have put piping in the edges...
You also get a glimpse of my WIP shelf there.  "A WIP shelf?" I hear you cry!  Oh yes, of course, who DOESN'T have a WIP shelf?  More about that next time...