My old pincushion was looking a bit tired and worn so I got enthusiastic when I found the Crocheted African Flower Pincushion Tutorial from Cherry Heart.

I wanted to use up some scraps of wool so I didn’t put much thought in to the colour choice. While my finished pincushion doesn’t resemble a standard flower, I think it’s turned out quite pretty.

A few jotted notes as I went:

• I decided to be lazy with the colour changes. I crocheted the yarn ends in to the next row and left a few strangly bits on the inside rather than weaving them in. I’m sure I’ll regret it some day when all the yarn ends start poking out :)
• I didn’t pay attention in the middle section and I think I added an extra row (not that it really matters).
• I somehow ended up with extra stitches in my piece after the middle section because I had more than one stitch leftover when I neared the end of the first round of decreases. I kept going and made a dc2tog towards the end of a few rows to try and avoid the piece becoming wonky, and again, it seemed to work out okay.
• For the decreases on the bottom half of the pincushion, I did dc2tog instead of skipping stitches because I’ve found, in amigurumi at least, that it reduces the chance of little gaps in the fabric. It seemed to work well for the pincushion.