Sewing a ‘pot of gold’ thread catcher

To say I’ve been feeling lucky this week is an understatement! Having the PFAFF performance icon in my sewing room is a real treat. In yesterday’s post, I added finishing touches to complete the Lucky 2B a Quilter pincushion. I told you there was more and today I’m sharing what a lucky quilter would find at the end of a rainbow pincushion – a lucky thread catcher!

I used a fun stitch on the PFAFF performance icon and added another sequence, combined with black fabric to resemble the pot and yellow fabric to resemble gold to make my own pot of gold – complete with a pocket for my little scissors.

materials

• 7″ square outside fabric
• 7″ square lining fabric
• 7″ square batting
• 2½” x 3½” piece of fabric for scissor pocket
• 10″ piece of rick rack
• thread that contrasts with outside fabric

Layer the outside fabric right side out on top of batting. Select a stitch to quilt the layers together; I started with stitch 2.2.4, a stippling stitch that requires presser foot 2A to be attached. Line up the red guide mark at the back of the foot with the back edge of the fabric and line up the right side of the fabric with the 1“ mark on the stitch plate. Press the Start/stop button to have the machine stitch while guiding the fabric beneath the needle.

I remembered there are some fun quilting themed stitches on the PFAFF performance icon and decided to use stitch 6.3.4 for the front of my thread catcher. Scissors cutting a ribbon is a fun stitch to use for this project! I looked at the screen and saw I needed to switch to presser foot 8 for this stitch. I lined up the opposite edge of the fabric and pressed the Start/stop to stitch out this design.

After the quilting was done I thought it would be fun to add my little moniker Sew Joy, to the front as well; this was as easy as selecting the Sequence Creator at the bottom of the screen, then selecting a font and typing with the onscreen keyboard to add the letter stitches. Once done with the keyboard I pressed the icon to close it and added a stop and cut instruction from the sequence commands tab.

After selecting OK, the machine moves the sequence into the stitching screen. I finger pressed the quilted outer fabric to find the middle and worked at centering the sequence by seeing how long it was in the Stitch Edit screen and using the inch to mm converting ruler in the machine’s lid (I’m sure this is for measuring buttons but it helps me make these conversions quickly! I also know I could actually change the settings in the machine to have my stitch sizes displayed in inches, I’m just comfortable with both).

The machine stitched out the sequence and I was a happy quilter 🙂

Fold the quilted outer fabric in half with right sides together and both rows of stitches against each other to sew up each side. I boxed the corners a little bit by cutting off a ¾″ square from each bottom corner. This will be easier to see in the photo of doing the same step on the lining – keep reading to get to that photo! Leave this quilted fabric like this and make the lining next.

To make the lining more useful I decided to add a pocket for my little stork scissors to sit in. When I’m away from home, having my scissors closer to my machine is useful – I tend to misplace them among all my stuff I put on the table when I’m away from home.
I took the 2½” x 3½”pocket fabric and folded under twice on each short end to make a hem and sewed them with a regular stitch. Then I folded the lining and the pocket to determine the middle of each and pinned the pocket about ½” down from the top edge. I used stitch 2.1.11 to stitch the pocket in place.

After that I proceeded to fold the lining in half to make it the same size as the quilted outer fabric and boxed the corners too. Here you can see I lined up the ¾” square mark of my ruler over the corner and cut the corner off. Then I opened the cut corner and put the cut edges against each other to make a flat edge to sew a seam across.

Now the lining is ready and inside out. Put the lining inside the outer fabric which is still right side in. I lined up the pocket so it would end up on the opposite side of the scissors – the rick rack should be pinned on the pocket side and tucked between the layers.

Remove the accessory tray and carefully straight stitch around the top to join the layers of the thread catcher together. Remember to leave a turning gap – I put mine on the front edge, backstitching before and after using the Reverse button.

I’m almost done! Pull the outer fabric through the turning gap and push out corners. Push the lining into the thread catcher and finger press around the edge. Tuck the turning gap in to prepare for topstitching.

I changed to the ¼” Quilting Foot for IDT system to help me get an accurate topstitch. The inner edge is ⅛” and perfect to guide the thread catcher around. Be sure to keep the rick rack to the right of the needle and flat not twisted.

The rick rack is long enough to hook around the pincushion to use them together at the machine. I tried hanging the duo over a foldable table which is what we have out at my guild’s sew days.

I feel like my luck is just beginning! With this lucky duo of rainbow pincushion and thread catcher I’ll have even more fun using the PFAFF performance icon.