Porcupine Pin Cushion


I thought that I was pretty clever when I came up with this. Come to find out, people have already made porcupine pin cushions. But have they mistakenly filled them with disgusting artificially pork-flavored dried pinto beans? I think not. So here is Porc&Beans, the unofficial Prudent Baby mascot. The best part about Porc&Beans is how much my 2yr old wants to play with him even though he is stuck with 100 sharp objects. So fun.

Learn to make your own Porc&Beans Pin Cushion after the jump.

1. Download the Porcupine Pincushion Template here.

2. Cut out 2 side-views and 1 bottom-view from tan felt.

3. With sides pinned together whip-stitch from tip of tail to tip of nose with 3 strands of brown embroidery thread. Your stitches need to be pretty close together to hold the beans in later.

4. Add simple stitches for eyes and a satin stitch for nose, if desired.

5. Spread out the legs of your sides and align with bottom piece. (If he doesn’t line up perfectly, feel free to trim him a bit.)

6. Whip-stitch top piece to bottom piece all the way around except for one leg (to allow for stuffing)

7. Stuff your porcupine firmly with stuffing.

8. Stuff the belly with (a few tablespoons, maybe?) of dried beans. You want the beans to be directly inside the felt of the belly. This gives the pincushion some stability.

9. Stitch up the last leg and tie off.

by

22 Comments

Julie

Aww! He's cute! I even already have all of the stuff to make one, plus I AM getting to where I need a new pincushion.

Reply
Jacinda

Jaime – The beans give a little weight to keep him from sliding around when you push in pins… and if you put in like 1,000,000 pins, he wouldn't keel over. But if your question as why "Pinto" beans, they don't have to be Pinto, feel free to use any dried bean variety. And no, I didn't just put in the beans in order to call him Porc&Beans;.

Reply
Sylvia

What's the deal with kids and pin cushions? My daughter loves paying with all three of mine and I can't keep them away from her! I think these would be super cute Christmas gifts for the women in our lives that sew..

-Sylvia
Stock Pots

Reply
nicole

Loved this little guy so much made them for everyone. Do you have an idea of how to make a 3-d cat pattern similar size of porcupine? Thanks.

Reply
CindyM

The link to Scribid for the porcupine doesn’t exist anymore. I finally get around to making him and DENIED. Could you send me the pattern, Please??

Reply
CindyM

Please tell us what happened to the pattern? I tried making it without one, but I am just not that talented.

Reply
sue patton

I am older and lived through a time when most Christmas presents were make it or bake it gifts.I can remember making pincushions for many of my aunts and other female relatives when I was younger. We always stuffed our pincushions with either clean dry sand or dry rice. The sand kept the needle and pin points nice and sharp! It was the preferred stuffing in my day!

Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *