Monday, January 19, 2009

My Sore Fingers!!

Ever since the fall of mankind, humans have been wearing clothes. And clothing requires someone to make it, and the generally accepted way to make clothes is to sew them. Therefor, sewing has been around for a very long time.
Now there are a lot of gadgets to make the task of sewing a lot easier. The sewing machine and serger come to mind. One of the simplest little sewing accoutrement's is the pincushion, the device to hold the sewist's pins and needles in one neat and organized place. The pincushion is so universal that when I started sewing at the age of 8, my very first sewing project was making a small pincushion with an elastic strap so I could wear a pincushion on my wrist and have easy access to my pins at all times. The pincushion is a great invention, and I still have that first little pincushion I made over twenty years ago.
My problem with pincushions is a very simple one though. I don't use them. When I sew, I will take the pins out of the pincushion, pin my fabric together and sit down at the machine. Then I will start to sew, removing the pins as I go along. I never ever return those pins into the pincushion as I sew, though. I prefer to drop the pins directly in front of the sewing machine as I go along. The sewing machine that I learned to sew on even had a small well-like impression in the front of the machine, neatly collecting my pins and reinforcing my tendency to not return the pins to the cushion, and when I finish sewing, returning those pins to the pincushion just annoys me.
My current machine doesn't have that little well-like impression in it though, currently causing my discarded pins to roll all over my sewing table and quite frequently my pins fall onto the floor, creating a little danger zone in my sewing area.
I decided to remedy this problem and get a little bowl to set by my machine in order to collect my discarded sewing pins. I looked on etsy for small bowls and found a great variety, some just completely adorable, but I haven't made an etsy sale in about a month now, so my paypal account is drained, and I really couldn't justify the expense. So I did what any crafty gal in their right brain would do, I made a bowl. I gathered up some little scrap pieces of fabric that were destined for the trash can, twisted them up and started hand-stitching them together.
The result is a wobbly, wonky bowl that tortured my fingers and took three hours to make (in my defense of time wasting, for the three hours I was hand sewing this silly thing, DH was playing a video game). I ended with a little rolled up bit of knit at the end that I decided to embellish with a few stray beads and two blue "leaves" to give the impression of a little flower.
Yep, it's all frayed looking, lopsided, and the stitches are less than pristine, but I think it's kinda cute. And it works as a pin bowl and a pincushion! Also, it collects other stray stuff from my sewing table. A win/win/win situation if you ask me.
P.S. Yes, I will probably jab my fingers with pins using this method, but that's really nothing new for me. :)





1 comment:

Robin@creations-anew.com said...

It's cute though...worth the pain!
Robin
CreationsAnew