Kelley's Pincushion "Re-Do"

One of my very best friends, Kelley, had a man make her a wooden pincushion holder. An old-fashioned one it was, made from a pretty wood. He used velvet to make the "pincushion part." It was a really neat idea. The only problem was he made the cushion part out of velvet. That would have been fine, but he made the "cushion" part about five inches tall and didn't fill it firm enough for it to work properly. It was very loosely stuffed, so if you put a needle in it...that needle would quickly get lost in the foam rubber which he used to stuff the pincushion. Now, I wonder why he used chunks of foam rubber? I didn't think to take a photo of this pincushion before I gave myself the assignment of re-doing this thing. And, FYI, the whole thing is twelve inches tall, with the pincushion being six inches in diameter.

Kelley would never ask me to do such a thing. Although, she should feel free to do that anytime. I actually owe her a few favors. For example: When I do a class or program in the Little Rock area, I always stay at her house. It's not often, once or twice a year or so. But, gosh, it's not easy to have people stay over in your home, especially if you've just had visitors, but Kelley always wants me to do it, so I do. She is a lovely hostess. Not only that, but if it's at night, she will drive me where I need to go. (Have I mentioned I can't drive after dark? Some people might question if I can even drive in broad daylight!)
Long story, short - I owe her. She's mentioned several times that the pincushion just didn't work like it should.....and a few weeks ago when the subject came up again...mostly me complaining about that pincushion...I just decided right then and there that we were going to "fix" it.

So, the other day I did just that. Now, it's all new and functional too. Here you see it in all it's glory. Kelley told me I could do whatever I felt like doing to it....which was all I needed to hear...immediately getting the scissors out and removing that velvet. You also have to take the wooden top off with a scewdriver, which I also did. I looked at it over and over for a couple of days and decided to re-do the top in wool and in fall colors. So, here it is....the bottom two wooden discs are adjustable to fit the edge of whatever table you are working at. And, now that it is "fixed" I hope she enjoys using it.

I made the pincushion in the crazy quilt style, embroidering over the seams with black DMC embroidery floss. I used several different stitches: Feather Stitch, Chain Stitch, Buttonhole Stitch, Herringbone Stitch, my beloved French Knots, Running Stitch, and Chevron Stitch. I used two strands of floss for the seam embroidery. When embroidering the leaves, I used all six strands of floss. I embroidered three different leaves...one in the Fishbone Stitch, one in the Closed Fly Stitch, and the stem with three leaves was done in Back Stitch.

It was difficult to make this and not embellish it to death....but I wanted to keep it simple...just seemed the right thing to do on this piece of work. I love the colors and wool is great fun to stitch on.

So, there you go! Kelley's pincushion re-do. I hope she likes it and feels better about using it. And, I hope you enjoyed seeing it. I really enjoyed doing that little thing for her. Y'all take care out there! pat

PS. For those of you who make comments and have given me no way to thank you...no email address, no blog address, etc., please know that I would thank you for those comments if I could. Also, you may remember I mentioned not being able to see my Followers list. I know you are out there, but I don't know who you are, so please just know that I really appreciate you!

Also, I am unable to comment on SOME of my favorite blogs and new ones I run across...for some unkown reason, I can't do it and it doesn't seem to matter whether they are blogspot or typepad. All my friends have pc's and I have a mac. No one can advise me. This really irks me as I like to post comments on blogs also. I'm not smart enough to figure out what is wrong. So, if you comment on one of my posts, rest assured I read the comments, appreciate them and would respond to you personally, if I could. To Dyann in Searcy - my email is on my profile page...we should probably touch base??? For those of you who used to receive comments from me, but no longer do...I'm still reading your blog posts, just unable to comment and I don't have your email address.