African Flower Pincushion

  When I first found the African Flower block pattern, I made a sample.  After the color scheme idea had changed, I was using the orphan block to hold  the crochet hook and my big needle for sewing in the yarn ends .  There are some lovely photos of the blocks made into pincushions on Ravelry, so I took the little flat block and made it into a useful pincushion for my crochet hooks.  The sides are made by crocheting into the back loops around the edge of the block using single or double crochet (I used double), and just crocheting until the pincushion sides are as long as you want.  Then you make a bottom piece and either sew or crochet it on.

 The first problem I had to solve was what to stuff it with.  Fiberfill would leak out of the holes in the crochet, so I found a piece of brown felt in the stash and attached a piece, trimmed to fit, to the inside top and bottom.  I also wanted to make the bottom more sturdy, so I found a square of plastic canvas and trimmed it to fit the inside bottom.  You can't even see the felt, really.  I didn't want to stuff the pincushion with fabric scraps because I tried that once and it is hard to stick pins into that kind of stuffing.  What I ended up using was yarn pulled from an ugly skein of mauve yarn.  I just pulled out loops and loops of yarn and stuffed it into the pincushion, held it down with the plastic canvas, then crocheted the bottom on.

I started out making another flower block for  the bottom, but sort of ended up crocheting a more solid block, making it up as I went along.  Now I'll always know where my hook and needle are, and the holes in the flower pattern are great for sticking the hook through across the top of the pincushion.

So far, I've completed 22 flowers for the afghan.  There will be 8 blocks across and 11 blocks down so I will need 83 blocks plus some half blocks for the sides.  Every other row has one less block because of the way the hexagons fit together.  It will work out better if I make all the flowers first, then decide on the placement and crochet on the borders and attach them to each other at that time.