A little bit of sewing and a discovery

Now that Mr U-t-B is truly back on his feet, we'd planned to go to a decent car boot sale on Sunday and give ourselves a £20 challenge to see who could bring back the best bundle of treasures.  This is what the eldest Miss U-t-B's boyfriend's family do to introduce an element of competition into their Sunday morning strolls, and it sounded like great fun.

But as Mr U-t-B ended up going to a work-related conference in Portsmouth with a bunch of his co-workers and the weather was inclement, we put the challenge off to another weekend.  All alone, with the vague scent of car boot treasure in my nostrils, I was tempted to venture out to our local, undercover, sale instead.

I have to say it wasn't really worth getting out for, but I did find one thing to bring home, something ripe for a little transformation...

First it got a lining of some pretty Lecien fabric...

This is the fabric, bought online from Tikki Patchwork...

Rosalie Quinlan Grandmother's Flower Garden fabric by Lecien pale green

I used the strawberry motif for inspiration for the pincushion...

I found a tip about using 100% wool scraps to stuff pincushions, so in true thrifty mode, used some skinny scraps of an old blanket (the rest of which has been used to line slippers and iPad bags) cut up small for these.  Supposedly the oils in the wool stop pins from rusting, but in this day and age, with our warm and relatively damp-free homes, I'm not sure this is as relevant as it might have been in days of yore!  Anyway, it is a good way of using up small scraps of wool.

Next I covered one of my empty mini 'Moo card' boxes with a scrap of Cath K fabric...

 

Here they are nestling in the basket...

Needlecase and scissor case to follow!

Whilst I was hunting for a pattern for a strawberry pincushion in amongst some sewing magazines, guess what I found?

My...

 ...(out-of-date)...

 ...Vogue...

...calendar!

Yay!