Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Cupcake-y goodness

Maw Bell Designs Frosted Cupcake PincushionFor their February Pincushion Club kit, Shabby Fabrics sent the pattern and fabrics to make the "Frosted Cupcake Pincushion" from Maw Bell Designs. Right away, I was all excited about it. Then I read the instructions and found that the pattern also required "1 small (2-1/2" high x 3-1/2" wise) plastic margarine container." Unfortunately, I'm not a margarine eater and it is pretty rare that I buy anything in a container that size. Determined not to run out and buy margarine just for the sake of getting the little plastic tub, I waited. It took a couple of months, but I finally got two containers roughly that size-- one from the aforementioned Greek yogurt and one that actually held paper baking cups (it seems I had to make real cupcakes before I could make pretend ones! Ha!). Finally, I was ready to make my cupcakes!

my finished cupcake pincushions
Overall, the instructions were pretty good-- straightforward, with helpful illustrations throughout, and everything made sense. I do have a couple of comments/hints though for anyone who decides to give the pattern a whirl.
  1. After putting the cupcake body together and turning it all right side out, the instruction is to "stuff firmly with fiberfill." I did this and (as Big Bear so kindly pointed out to me) my cupcake looked like an egg. I found that I needed to take out a bunch of the stuffing before it could fit in the little plastic tub and look cupcake-like.

  2. When trying to gather the bias strips to make the "frosting," I kept pulling out my basting threads by accident. Gah! On the third time, I figured out that if I took a few normal-length stitches at the beginning, before switching to the longer basting stitch, it anchored the thread just enough so I didn't have that problem.

  3. My cupcakes kept slipping out of their plastic tub bases. In order to keep my cupcakes held together, I went ahead and hand stitched the top edge of the completed "baking cup" to the side of the cupcake, thus keeping everything in place.

All-in-all, this was a fun and easy pattern (and pretty quick to make, too!). And now I have a couple of very cute little cupcakes!

5 comments:

  1. Very cute! I really like the frosting! Making ruffles can be a pain when the stitching breaks on you.

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  2. They look so good I could eat them :-)

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  3. TOO CUTE! How fun it was to make these for sure!! Thanks for the tips!

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  4. Adorable! They seem too cute to actually use...

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