Each year, I seem to kind of flip back and forth between wanting to make all the holiday gift items and decorations and just selecting a few small projects to work on. Regardless of which end of the cycle you might be in this year, quick, small handmade projects are always a fun way to sneak in a little special holiday sewing, and I’ve got several on the site that are just perfect for that.

As you probably know by now, I love making pincushions, especially small ones (evidence here and here to start). But once I brought my Maker’s Heart paper-piecing pattern into existence, the obsession has gone up a whole other notch. Heart pinnies galore around here!

Just in time for Valentine’s, introducing the Maker’s Heart pattern! After making my Heart of Hearts quilt pattern, I couldn’t get the block out of my brain and kept dreaming of how cute it would be in mini form (because everything’s cuter when you shrink it, right?). And a tiny heart deserves to be nestled into a tiny pincushion, so I couldn’t resist offering you two options for that as well.⁣

Sewing creates a lot of scraps. I’ve always been one to hold on to almost every scrap I make, but of course, more often than not, they just wind up in a scrap basket and are never touched or seen from again. When I was working on the quilts for my Heart of Hearts pattern, I noticed the cutest little pile of color scraps accumulating on the corner of my cutting mat and knew it was the perfect opportunity to make some precious little pincushions.

If you’re anything like me, most years, you’re guilty of piling your holiday-sewing task list so high you’re destined for failure, either because you can’t get to it all and end up feeling disappointed or because you do get it all done, but you’re too exhausted to enjoy most of it. Phew. Thankfully, I was a little better this year, hoping to sew only a small number of items (and nothing that would be too big a deal if it didn’t get done), which ended up leaving me a little time to sew these cuties together for some good friends — and to put together a little tutorial so you can do the same!