Pin Cushions

Do you need a pin cushion? a friend recently asked me, offering me this lovely pottery bowl stuffed with fabric to make a decorative holder of needles and pins.














I do have some, but I can never have too many! I replied.

I have them all over the house: I keep at least one beside my reading chair - in case I need to sew on a button. Others are in various sewing baskets with my thread and sewing machine supplies.

Each one has a history!

I made this one after seeing one like it in a quilter's sewing basket. (My daughter has always hated it!)














How can you push pins into a sleeping old lady?! she always comments with a shudder...














But pin cushions are meant to be fun! How else would you explain this heart shaped one? I made it from a pattern printed on fabric!














A heart stuck with pins... created perhaps by someone stung a little too often by cupid's arrows?!














And then there is this hat that my mother made out of a cardboard circle and a mound of batting, covered with cloth...














This needle book is also practical. I made it as a child - either in my first home economics class or as a vacation Bible school craft... Girls were taught to make practical things like that in those days!














Whenever I made it - learning to embroider and do a blanket stitch around the cover as well - it has been a useful addition to my sewing basket over the years!