1-UP Mushroom Pincushion/plush

This is my first time making an instructable so please bear with me if I am not thorough enough in my explanations.

When I was working on a dress for my sister-in-law I decided I was tired of reaching into my pin box and getting stabbed. I didn't want one of those plain, unattractive tomatoes so I decided to make a 1-UP mushroom from some scrap fabric I had from other projects.

With that said - "Let's-a-go!"

You will need -
1. Fabrics
I used some left over felts but you can buy felt at most craft stores for pennies for a square foot. I used:
White for the spots
Green for the cap
tan for the head

2. Thread
I have a lot of thread so I just matched the colors - i.e. green, tan, white, and black for the eyes. You probably could get away with one color, for example black, but as I'll show you later, my mushroom ended up with a weird stitched smile like a scarecrow.

3. Fiberfill and rice
I used rice for the head because I heard that it works as a needle sharpener but you can use just fiberfill if you want

4. Needle and sewing machine
I'm sure you could do it by hand but I hate hand sewing so I did most of it by machine.

Step 1
Cut out the pattern.  My pattern for the mushroom head is about 1" tall so resize accordingly.

Step 2
Cut out the fabric. I make my patterns without seam allowances so be sure to cut out around the pattern, not right on the line. Be sure to leave the head piece about 1.5"-2" tall like i have in my pic so you can draw it closed as there is no top piece.

Step 3
Using black thread, sew the eyes. I used my machine's zigzag stitch with a tight weave to create the two long lines that make a mushroom's eyes. Be sure to leave excess thread at the beginning and end so you can thread it into the mushroom and tie it off otherwise your stitch will start to unravel like mine did here.

Step 4
Use tan thread and, starting from the eyes, sew the reverse sides of the head together leaving the two ends of the face hang in the back. Then sew the 2 ends together to form the cylinder of the head. flip it right side out so you can see your handywork.

Step 5
I kinda skipped over this step in the pictures so I apologize. Basically on my first mushroom I filled the head with rice (I read that it makes a nice needle sharpener like the dangling pepper on tomato pincushions.) Fill it about half way to your oversized head and hand stitch the top closed. I zigzagged between opposite ends like you would a drawstring pouch to close off the head and seal the rice from the fiberfill.

Step 6
for the cap I started at the top center and worked my way out. First (with the green thread) I would sew 2 sides together about half way and then the other two sides the same. at that point I would sew the two halves together (again, half way)

Step 7
Sew the top spot on. I used a top stitch, one - because I was lazy, and two - because I didn't expect it to look too bad. The felt ends up covering the stitch lines anyway so it wasn't very noticable, the rough cut edge of the spots just makes it look a bit fuzzier. I used green thread, but you could very easily switch to white to hide the stitching even more.

Step 8
Sew on the other 4 spots. I left about 1/2" between my top spot and my side spots and it turned out pretty well.

Step 9
cut off the excess around the top stitch to clean up the edges. That's why the pattern piece is so big - it gives you a nice rounded look in my opinion if you do it this way.

Step 10
Finish your half stitches down the sides (there should be about a 1"-1.5" square opening) and fill your cap. I used polyester fiberfill to fill mine out (again, I didn't take pics of this step). Pack it tight enough that it bulges out the sides to create the flattened beachball shape.

Step 11
At this point, you will take your cap and your closed head and hand sew the 2 halves together. (I used what I call a spiral stitch - should look roughly like this: / / / / / / ) I used the tan thread here because it mostly shows on the face. sew the 2 halves together around the edges drawing them tight together to not only tighten up the cap but draw the face closer into the cap.

Step 12
Enjoy! you've just made your very own 1-UP mushroom! Mama-mia!

Final words:
They're relatively cheap to make so fret not if you make a mistake or two. All and all I think it was somewhere under $5 combined for both of mine. I use both of mine as pincushions but I'm considering making about 20 more to fill a christmas tree this winter - They're plushy and fun so do whatever you want with them!
 
I ended up having to make a lot of changes to my second one for many reasons, some I've already mentioned.
First my cap was too tall so I took it apart again, took off the top spot and sewed the pointed top out and hand stitched the top spot back on. Then I noticed the weird black stitch grin, so I took tan thread and drew those edges closer to hide the black stitching. It still looked a little pointed so I slammed the cap on the table a few times to rearrange the plush into the right shape. Only then did I realize that I had mislabled my spots and my face bottom so my head is overly large and my spots overly small, but it still looks pretty good. Trial and error will be your friend on this.

I did update the pattern so you shouldn't have the same problems I did, but I am completely open to suggestions and pattern updates.