Mugatu's Pincushion

Once upon a time, there was a guy who thought this was a good idea...

A cushion filled with ground walnut shells and a bowl full of M&Ms with all the brown M&Ms removed a la Van Halen. The cushion is actually sitting on a small box to help cut down on the number of M&Ms that had to be sorted. This didn't really work out very well, especially since I had pins with the mulit-colored glass heads at the time.

So this project will come as no surprise (plus, I mentioned it in another post).

I started with a piece of 2" foam and a square.

I cut out two 8" squares so I could have a block 4" tall. I'm not sure I shouldn't have gone to 10" squares, but I have more to make another one if I'm still feeling stupid later.

Because it was there, I used my little Buck 503 knife to cut the pieces, though I'm sure something like this would have worked better.

To start the pattern, I took the square and drew out an  8" square with 4" sides and a 2" fold under.

I'll need to add something to the "flaps" for seam allowances, but this is the basic form.

Laid over the block, you can see where this is going. For the moment, I just taped the two layers of foam together with the greatest invention since duct tape, blue tape. It didn't stick to the foam so  well (it's blue tape), so I ended up just going around all the way, but it will do for now.

I'm easily amused, but I love blue tape.

For the upholstery, I'll be using this red silk velvet that's been languishing in my closet forever. Despite what they say about velvet, I hope this is easier to sew with than photograph. Probably should have tried getting near a window while it was so sunny today to photograph with natural light, but this is the best I could do.

I'll also need to come up with a way to finish the bottom and attach the feet. Originally I was planning to put it on some sort of tray or something and attach something else in the role of feet, but so far I got nothing. I'll bet Ikea has some cylindrical door pulls or whatnots that would work for this though I like the idea of having some sort of base to attach them  to rather than trying to anchor them in the foam. For now though, I'll worry about making presentable velvet seams.

Once again I guess I did it the hard way. I wanted to make a muslin test of the pattern and it immediately came to me all I needed to do was set the foam block right on the fabric and trace around it. Then flip it up on each side in turn and touch it up with the square to make sure everything's straight.

Next time I'll mark the block and the fabric to make sure it goes back in the same orientation that it was traced off though. It seems that not everything is straight, flat and square on this foam block. Surprise! A little trimming and pressing with the point presser on the clapper and it's getting there. Some thin batting under there might help even things out a bit given the underlying block but the velvet may do the same thing.