Faux Suede Mirror/Pincushion

Years ago I used to work at the Rag Shop teaching children's craft classes. This was a long time ago when they were new to the area and the only real inexpensive craft and fabric store around. Needless to say, even when I stopped working there it was still a favorite place to go. Sadly, they are out-of-business now. With the exception of Wal-Mart, there are no other places to purchase inexpensive fabric within 20 miles of my home. Now I know that some of you reading might have even farther to travel for your fabric, but I'm sure that you would be sad if one of your sources dried up, no matter how far you had to go.

One of the last fabric purchases that I made there was this pretty blue faux suede. I don't remember how much per yard it was, I only know that when I saw it I knew that I had to have some and do something with it and this is what I came up with. I made about a 1/2 dozen of these as Christmas gifts for some very close friends, and family a couple of years ago.

Since I was going in vacation this week, I decided to take a break from paper crafts (mainly because I would have to lug an awful lot of stuff with me), and to grab something that I had ready to go. I had a box with all the supplies for 3 more of these babies which I thought that I'd share with you.

Maybe you might be inclined to give something like this a try for yourself using a fabric find of your own.

You will need:

Your fabric choice

Single-side bias tape in a matching or contrasting color

3" round mirror

Quilt batting

Embroidery floss and beads for your decoration

Beading and Regular sewing needle

I started by making a pattern for a circle 4 1/2" in diameter - trace this onto the wrong side of your fabric and cut out.

I used poly batting doubled for my project. I cut the circles of batting about 1/4" bigger than the mirror.

I sewed the bias tape onto the right side of the suede circle on my sewing machine, then folded it over to the inside and stitched that by hand. So now you have a place to insert a length of embroidery floss through. Layer the suede circle face down, the polyfil, and then the mirror face up. Draw the ends of the floss together and tie in a knot. (This is like a drawstring on sweatpants.) Trim and hide the ends of your drawstring. You now have the basic mirror completed. From here you can add your beads and/or embroidery as you so choose.

I gave these to my friends/family in purchased organza bags so they could keep them in their purse if they wanted to. Me - I use mine as a pincushion and leave it out on my work table.