The Joy of Handwork!

That was the title that the coordinator gave to a program that I did last evening for a local County Extension group. I liked it alot!! There really is joy in handwork and here are the photos to prove it. Loads of smiles, lots of laughter throughout the evening and some tasty treats, too!! The program was actually just a little class on making my Turkish Rose Pincushion. I brought along a few penny rugs and other items in wool just so they could see the fun things one can create with wool or woolfelt and lots of thread and hand stitching. Initially, I was going to make up kits but I decided instead to bring my basket of woolfelt (National Nonwovens Centennial colors) and let everyone choose their own colors. We all enjoyed seeing how different each pincushion looked in the various colors chosen.


Once the woolfelt colors were chosen, it was time to choose thread colors. Again, I just brought my entire basket of Perle cotton so everyone could choose the color they preferred. I also brought my embroidery floss in case it was needed but my personal preference is to use Perle cotton on my woolfelt projects.
That's my friend, Joanie on the left and Sharon on the right and I can't recall the name of the lady in the center. I do recall that she was a very good handstitcher and very helpful to the ladies at her table!!


This is the table she was at and I took this while she was still selecting threads. Everyone was very busy working on their pincushions. Most of the ladies were new to me but I had met Gayle (dark green shirt in the middle) when we both enjoyed a German dinner and music in Henderson last summer. We were all treated to lime green punch, green sherbert and sugar cookies by Mary the coordinator. The sherbert was really, really good!

Sharon and Sylvia are very focused on their stitching and so is Shirley. She's happy with her colors. I was, too. I wanted to make one in every color combo that they all chose!!

It turns out I had also met Jackie (below)at the Henderson Library quilt shows last fall. All evening, I kept thinking "I know her from somewhere" and thankfully, she solved the puzzle for me. LOL!! Here she is with her pieces that are stitched and ready to become a pincushion.

Big smiles here.....first finished pincushion!!!

If you want to make a pincushion and smile, too, go over to my pincushion blog MommasPrettyPincushions and you'll find the pattern for the Turkish Rose Pincushion. If you are interested in a woolfelt kit, just e-mail me for more info at stitchinglegacy @ gmail (dot) com.

My friend, Joanie, has the most wonderful smile and is just the nicest person you could ever get to know. She also has a wonderful laugh. I've written about her before as she has a wonderful gift for floral arranging and beautiful gardens at her home. She doesn't do much sewing but she did fine on her pincushion. That's her daughter-in-law Nicole who also came to the program. If Nicole is as lucky as I was in the "mother-in-law department" then she has the best "mother-in-law ever". In all the years I knew my mother-in-law, Ora, she never said an unkind word to me. Now my husband agreed to that but also agreed that she probably chastised him a time or two............but well, this is about pincushions.......so back to the subject at hand.

Here's one more finished pincushion and Joanie must have been color coordinating it with her outfit. If I had been thinking, I would have lined up the color selections so you could see how different they all looked.

The evening was great fun and I especially enjoyed it as it was the first teaching session I've done in over a year. With all the family health issues and the passing of my dad, it just wasn't possible to schedule classes or programs. I have another program coming up in just four weeks then one four days after that so there's more fun to come!

Sun is shining here today and temps are in the 30's. We are to be in the 40's all next week so I am hanging up the winter coat til next season!! Won't get out the shorts and sandals yet but I hope this is "bye-bye winter"!!!

Have a great weekend!!

Sandi