Hand Crafted Boxed Flower Pincushion

This dear little home-made pincushion makes me feel so nostalgic about embroidery transfers and surface embroidery from when I was a young girl! I was never good at this type of embroidery, but I did make the odd tray cloth at school – who even uses these now?

When I find this type of embroidery, I usually re-purpose it in some way, but I could not change this perfect little handmade treasure. You can see from the pictures that the tiny stitches around the edge and around the bottom are just perfect. I am blushing as I write because unless it is counted, I am not good!

You can see why I enjoy stitching using ‘counted’ stitches when you think about how difficult it once was to mark out what you wanted to stitch. You might have the drawing of what you want on paper but getting that on to the fabric is a whole different matter. One traditional method was to make pin-prick holes along the outlines of your drawing, put this on top of your fabric and sprinkle a powder fine enough to go through the holes. The result, a dot-to-dot outline on your fabric. It is no wonder iron-on transfers were a revolution. I think my little pincushion must have been made using one of these as I swear I can see little hints of the distinctive blue transfer ink around the edges of some of the embroidered shapes.