Flower Pincushion - Pincushion Swap

Two weeks ago I mailed off my pincushion swap to my partner in England.  She got it yesterday.  Here is what I made for her.  It is a flower pincushion that uses a jar lid as its base, and I also used eco-fi felt for it.  Eco-fi felt is made from recycled plastic bottles.  I used 3 different shades of blue felt for the petals, and then I painted lines on them with puffy paint.  The petals are good for storing sewing needles.

On the top are some green sequence with yellow paint dots in the center.  Then I lined the base of the yellow center with blue shiny trim.  My partner likes shiny stuff.

I also added some sequence to the base as well.

Here is what I received from my partner: two pincushions, the small one is a bottle cap ring pincushion.  The large one uses a sock around the outside of it.  Here is what my partner said about them: "Hi Hun I am so glad that you liked them. You are right about the sock. The strawberry fabric was left over my friends little girls dress. The black part on the side of the bottle top pincushion was the strap off my old velvet top and both of them are stuffed with wool from my friend’s pet sheep Bertie."


It was fun making the pincushion and getting some in trade.  I want to make another flower one for myself so that I have a good place to store all of my sewing needles as well as my pins.

Pincushion, Class Prep, and Soda Tab Chain

Yesterday while my friend and her 2 daughters were over at my house, I showed them how to make a bottle cap pincushion.  One of them was having a few friends for a sleepover tonight and she wanted a simple craft project to do with them.  I wonder if they made some.  

I finished sanding 31 cardboard tubes for my class tomorrow, and I counted all of my soda tabs to make sure that I had enough.  I'm teaching 26 teens and tweens how to make cardboard mailing tube bangles and soda tab bracelets tomorrow.  The tabs in the chick paint can are all the large tabs that I have.  I didn't expect to have that many large ones.

This is a soda tab project that I have been working on.  I think that it looks like a bike chain.

Weaving at the Textile Museum

Today I went to the American Textile History Museum.  They were celebrating their 50th anniversary, admission was free, and my friend was volunteering there.  It was great being able to work on my weaving in public while my 3 year old played.  They have a great kids' room there with lots of fun crafts to do (which I'll talk about on Tuesday).  Plus it was really nice hanging out with my friend for a little while (she took this picture of me).

As an early birthday treat to myself, I bought this cute messenger bag at the museum.  It is made from a recycled, plastic woven material (hagar design).  The museum had a special exhibit called "More Than A Number: a collection of Khmer Refugee transit photos and the stories of our heroic survivors."  A very sad yet moving story of Cambodian refugees, what they went through, and their textiles.  The purchase of this bag helped disadvantage women in Cambodia.

One of my last posts talked about how little critters seemed to enjoy hanging out with me while I wove outside.  Well this spider came out on my swing two days in a row while I was weaving.  Its kind of cool to be weaving around the original weavers.