Pincushion Parade

The blogger at Love Laugh Quilt is hosting a Pincushion Parade this week, and invited people to share their pincushions and link back to her blog posting here. Pincushions are small, easy to finish, and just the right size to try out a new technique or two... I have quite a few. Two of my treasures are from friends; the turquoise emery is from Moonsilk Stitches (my Christmas present this year) and the silk with bullion stitches is from Paula, a blog buddy in Australia.

In this set, we have a felt pincushion on a crystal pedestal. It was a summer guild project a couple of years ago. I still like how it turned out. The pink circle is my temari pincushion: the base of it is a CD. This is the one that sits on the arm of my chair all the time. The Hope pincushion commemorates surviving breast cancer. I cannot remember exactly, but I think I won the kit at guild, and then stitched it.

The blackwork pincushion here I submitted as one of my additional techniques for my juried application to join a guild, so it is certainly over 25 years old. (The guild no longer juries applications.) [The purple circles are from an applique UFO which is almost that old as well.] The strawberry emery was from a very complete kit, which included everything to finish the project, including the emery! The flower on the left side is from a felted pincushion. There is no sewing in this one at all, I just started with a ball of fluff and ended up with this. This was one of my technique experiments, and was a lot of fun.

The three little guys on the right were an experiment as well. I was planning on giving pincushions to friends at Christmas, but was not happy enough with any of these to give them as gifts. There's a snowman, a crown, and a rabbit in a top hat. The ideas are cute enough, but they did not turn out as cute as I would have liked.

I hope you enjoyed the parade!

TAST week 2

The TAST stitch for this past week was the Buttonhole Stitch. I did 4 little samples, one even on top and bottom with a pearl cotton, 2 threads between stitches; one with the legs stepping up and down with a silk floss; one with the header undulating, with another silk floss; and a buttonhole eyelet with pearl cotton #8.

I think I have to do one more sample, just to balance out what I have here... one horizontal line of stitching sort of wrapping around or framing the eyelet. The challenge will be picking the right color. I am trying to let the fly stitches guide the color selection.

I looked through my metallic/silk drawer, and found a couple of appropriate threads, and through my pearl cotton #8 drawer, and found a couple more. I should be set for threads now.

I really enjoyed working these stitches, and I'm excited to see what the next stitch is. I'm also working on the header, working on pricking my pattern so I can use the powdered charcoal to transfer the lines to the linen. I will try to take pictures of the process. There will be room at the top for the date and some initials too.