Repurposing Pincushions!

So, I know that we got married in January in a perfect (for me) small way. But my new husband is partial to large parties so we're having a blessing and party to celebrate being married in September, back in Ireland. As part of the ceremony we're having our parents bring up our rings, and also doing a hand binding ceremony. We could have bought (or done without) ring pillows, and we could have borrowed our Humanist's hand binding ribbon - but where's the fun in those things!?

I've had Kim's Cathedral Window pincushion tutorial bookmarked for ages now, and I've always been equally daunted and intrigued by the Cathedral Window block. So this seemed like a good time to give it a try! And in a greater act of providence I won a $20 gift certificate from Erica at Kitchen Table Quilting for the Fat Quarter Shop!!

I made one extra, the one with the button I get to keep!

I used a Liberty Stile fabric for the centre, and then picked up the colours in some Summersville Spring and Salt Air fabric I had lying around. The cushions are easy to make when you have Kim's tutorial to follow, and quick once you get by the burning your fingers with the iron stage (why did I cut my nails before this project!?). I will definitely be making these again! The ring pillows aren't stuffed yet because my fibre fill is back in Ireland. So I'll do that when I get home. It also reduces bulk for the plane!! Despite their lack of filling, they do work nicely.

I bought some Technicolor crosshatch for the hand binding ribbon (as it has two colours on one piece of fabric, allowing me to have different but similar sides on the ribbon). The whole idea of the ceremony is to represent two coming together as one, so using this fabric appealed to me. As did having two different fabrics making the one ribbon that would be used to bind Paul and I together. I embroidered our initials on one side of the ribbon, and in the centre on the other side I appliqued a little square of fabrics from the ring pillows - to try and unite everything with a common colour theme, I guess.

I spent the rest of my gift certificate on the white fabric for the pincushions, and a 6" charm pack of Tula Pink's The Birds and The Bees. Originally I was going to use these for the coloured sections in the Cathedral Windows but I decided the colour palette wasn't bright enough. So right now, I have it laid out on my design wall (too fancy a term for some tacked up batting) and I've planned a whole little quilt with these at the centre!

However, a quilt for a little boy is what's on the cutting table right now :)

Hope you all have a good weekend! Linking up to TGIFF at Molli Sparkles!