Valentine Heart Pin Cushion Tutorial (or Fun Bean Bag for Kids)!

This little valentine pin cushion will cheer up your sewing area and put you in the Valentine's Day mood!

Read on to make your own red, white and pink pin cushion.

Materials needed:  Scraps of fabric, batting, rice
Start out with several 6" - 12" strips of fabric 1 3/4" wide.  Sew two together along both long sides. 

This is called "tube sewing".

Cut 1 1/4" segments and then cut those segments diagonally.

Press each triangle piece open.  You will then sew these together to form hour glass blocks.

Just line them up and sew together one after another --

Cut them apart and press open.  Trim and square them to be 1 1/4"

Carefully sew them together into 4 patches, pressing and squaring into 2" blocks and then continue sewing your 4 patch blocks together until you have the size you want for your heart shape.  Note:  Forgive my poor example-- I just kept sewing even when I realized I'd not sewn it properly.  In the end, it's still cute, which proves that you don't always have to be perfect.

Fold a piece of paper in half and draw a 1/2 heart shape and cut out.  This will be your template.

Here I was deciding whether to cut it out or quilt it first.

I decided to quilt it first (just sewed diagonal lines as shown).  I put a scrap of batting and backing, but don't use the backing because it makes it stiff and difficult to turn right side out.

Template pinned on and ready to cut out.

Using the same temple and cutting out the back of the pin cushion.

Ready to sew front to back? No I decided to go ahead and do some quilting on the back too, but just with batting and no backing this time.

Ready to quilt the back piece.

Front and back all quilted.  Here I thought about adding ribbon, trim or even rick rack which would be cute and fun, but in the end, I just left it plain.

Pin front and back together and sew all the way around, leaving a 3 or 4" opening for turning.

Before turning clip the curves and trim excess away from the point at the bottom and the "V" shape at the top.

Turn right side out and add rice.  Put some batting scraps in on top of the rice (to keep the rice in place) and stitch the opening closed.

It has a nice weight to it and would also be fun to use as a bean bag for kids to toss around.

This is my last Valentine project for now.  I have a cat and valentine wall hanging in progress, but no time left.  I'm sort of disappointed that I have to stop sewing and go on vacation!  (Kind of crazy, huh?)  Don't miss Elaine's final 2 days of projects!