Tick, tock...,

Thank you all for humoring me with my soppy previous post!, the exhibition opening went well, as did his speech.  As a way of saying thank you, I spent yesterday evening working on a new tutorial, and here it is..., a wrist watch pin cushion!. 

To make one, you will need...,

2 circles, measuring 8cm across of coloured felt (I've used a felted jumper)

1 circle, measuring 5.5cm of cream felt

1 strip of fabric, 3cm wide and long enough to wrap round your wrist with a 3cm overlap

1 strip of felt, same size as fabric strip

selection of small buttons

embroidery thread (I've used pearl cotton 8)

small amount of stuffing

1 snap fastener

pins, sewing needle, scissors, sewing machine (optional)

First, take the strips of fabric and felt, place them wrong sides together, pin and stitch all the way round the edge in blanket stitch.

Take one of the circles of coloured felt, and cut two, 3cm long slits.  Thread the strap through, making sure the felt circle is right side up, and the strap has the fabric side facing down.  Secure the strap in place with a few stitches.  Put this to one side while you work on the watch face.

Next, embroider the watch face numbers, either by hand, or you can do this by free machining on a sewing machine.  If you are a bit unsure how to do machine embroidery, I have a video tutorial posted on You Tube which explains how to do it!  It will help, to get the spacing right, to do the 12, 3, 6 and 9 first, then fill in the gaps with the other numbers.

Now, going back to the strap piece and holding it fabric side up, take the other circle of coloured felt, and place this, right side up, on top of the first felt circle.  Stitch blanket stitch all round the edge to join the two together, stop when you just have 5 cm left to sew, and stuff the watch face via this gap.  Once you are happy with the shape, continue sewing to close.  Attach the watch face with a few random straight stitches (I always prefer to do this part after it has been stuffed so I can get the positioning right, as stuffing it quite often changes the shape).  Add a winder to the right hand side, I did this by attaching two small buttons, one on top of the other.  Sew on another button centrally on the watch face, and embroider on the clock hands.

I made mine to say, 8 o'clock, my favorite time.  If it's 8am and we're still in bed, it means we've had a lie in, and 8pm, is when the kids are tucked up in bed, and I start sewing!

Test the strap round your wrist, and mark with a pin whereabouts the snap fastener needs to go.  Sew on the fastener, then add a button on the outside of the strap, although this is purely for decoration.

and there you go!.  It looks big on me, but I have ridiculously tiny wrists.  Just adjust the sizes of the circles if you want to make yours smaller.

As always, if you make one, I love to see your creations, please join the 'Lucykate Crafts... pattern pieces' group on Flickr and post your work there!

Happy stitching!