All the Little Things

 Every year, I plan to go to Celebration of Needlework in Nashua, NH.  Well, obviously that didn't happen this year...but there was the option to "attend" some of the classes virtually.  Since I wasn't spending money on travel or a hotel room, I decided to splurge a bit and do two of the round robin sessions - where designers bring a small kit and provide stitching/finishing instructions.  You never know which designers will be in which class session, so I took both just so I wouldn't miss anything!  I don't usually like EVERY kit I get, but the anticipation is still fun and I eventually get around to stitching a few of them

One of the kits I got this year was from Sharon Verbos of The Purple Thread - a sweet little pincushion that fits in a teeny metal wheelbarrow.  There was a challenge on the Celebration FB group to see round robin finishes, so I decided I needed to get moving!  And since it was a kit, I had everything I needed...

It just seemed right to use another one of my husband's grandmother's bird beads on this one.  :)  It was designed with three little wooden beads in that spot, but I like my change!  I also attached the pink buttons with the darker pink thread (the chart used the lighter one).  And I filled it with crushed walnut shells to give it some bulk but not a lot of puff.

After finishing that, I was looking through my stash of "things that could eventually be used to feature finished stitching," and came across a teeny teacup and saucer.  I think I found these at a thrift store years ago, and was smitten with the idea of making a teacup pincushion.  Well, since I was also trying to thin my book/pattern collection, I found the perfect pattern in a book I was contemplating passing along, stitched this little rose over-one on 25-ct., and voila!

I used the directions from Nordic Needle's "Save the Stitches" blog, in this post about pincushions.  It was a little fiddly, but not too hard.  (I may have over-stuffed a bit, as the stitched poof kept trying to pop out of the cup.  

I feel so productive.