Crochet cupcake pincushion – YUM!

It was my friend Mairead's birthday, and she simply LOVES sewing. She makes the best, most amazing fancy-dress costumes ever. Plus, she is as big a fan of cute kitsch as you could ever find, and she loves cakes, too. So I thought there could be no better gift than a crochet cupcake pincushion!

I made this one from two different patterns I found online. The top is from this pattern on the Bittersweet blog, and the cupcake base is made from another pattern that is no longer available online* (sadly). But this one from Good Housekeeping is pretty close. I liked the curly icing from the Bittersweet pattern, but wanted a stable base for the pincushion rather than a curved one. My other variation was to put a little piece of felt that had a 2p coin glued to it in the bottom, to weight the pincushion to keep it from toppling over when using it. I also looked all around to find some pearlised pins to put into the top - I wanted to make sure they looked like sprinkles or those little metallic sugar balls you find in cake decorating shops.

The coolest bit about this gift is that loads of Mairead's friends had decided to group together and buy her a joint gift of sewing lessons at a London costumier, so my little pincushion present couldn't have been more appropriate!

* If I can find the printout of the pattern I used, I will post it, because it really is good and I know that the original author said anyone could use it (I will be sure to credit if I can!). UPDATE: the pattern for the base is here on Web Archive.