Sometimes when I am feeling stuck creatively I try to make something in less than 30 minutes without really thinking about the outcome as kind of a warm up to get things flowing. The instant gratification of a finished product will keep me satisfied so I can keep working on a longer more time consuming project. The other day I whipped up a pincushion from an old silk dress, some wool batting, and a tea cup and when it was done with it I was able to continue on with my embroidered drawing with a little more skip in my step (lilt in my wrist?). Anyways... curious to see what was happening in the handmade pincushion world, I got lost in Etsy land for a good bit and here are some of my favorites that I came across:
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| felted wool bird on embroidered feed sack by magpiejane |
tiny pond and cattails, first snow frosty mushrooms and evergreen woodland fir tree
These are all just such sweet little treasures! Would love to find one (or more?) of these in my basket come Easter...
*A little history lesson regarding the origin of the classic tomato pincushion: Dating back to the 15th century, people believed that keeping a ripe tomato in the home on a mantel or entry way would bring prosperity and repel evil spirits. Since real tomatoes were not available throughout the year people would make them with fabric and fill them with straw or sawdust. The stuffed fabric tomato eventually began being used as a pincushion!
2 comments:
This makes me want to start a pincushion collection. Thanks for the history of the tomato pincushion. I had no idea and always wondered why pincushions were tomatoes - I still have mine from my childhood.
Omigosh I just want to squeeze those little whales!! After taking the pins out, of course :) Thank you for showing my pincushions here in such an adorable collection, and I never knew that about the original tomato! Hmm...
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