If I Had My Own Blue Box:

***Note- This post will be updated as I test more fillings from the t0-do list.***

Squishing filling into a pin cushion one day, I started to wonder what a fun game it would be to stuff a bunch of pin cushions with different fillings and see if people could guess which was which.

As weird thoughts go, this one kept rolling round in my head… Over the years, then and now, what all have people tried to stuff their pin cushions with? How did each one act? What worked? What didn’t? What really didn’t? …. This rolling became a “must try this.” I had a bunch of pin cushion circles left from the workshops didn’t? Yep….

Let’s first look at the history:

What did “they” fill their cushions with? I have seen a few materials inside pin cushions and sewing cases.  There are others I not experienced in person but know to have been used. These include:

• bran
• raw wool
• scraps of wool threads such as those pulled from fabrics
• straw or flax
• sawdust and wood shavings
• emery

For the ‘experiment’, I used both materials that would have been used in the 19th century and modern use ones. I thought it would be an interesting comparison. Factors I looked at included easy of stick-ability, weight, compression and effects on pins over time. Each of the cushions are made with quilt weight cotton and crochet cotton. The crochet cotton helps determine how the filling compacts.

What I stuffed with:

Wool batting/roving – This seems to provide the softest/squishiest of the wool fillings. It is firmer than the poly-fil. While it compacts, it does so evenly with a moderate amount of pull on the string.

The cushion is fairly light weight. Pins stick easily with a slight depression before going through the fabric. As wool roving and batting are easily available, this is an inexpensive and accessible, period correct option.

Raw, cleaned wool – This seems to provide the densest, least squishy of the wool fillings. The raw wool I used was fairly tightly wound to itself in clumps. I think this made stuffing the cushion easier. I can feel some of those twists inside. It compacts consistently with a little more pull on the string than the roving did. Some areas do feel less dense than others. The pins stick easily with a slight depression before breaking through the fabric.

The natural lanolin in the wool is said to be good for the needles. Raw wool may be easily available for some but not others. If available, this is an inexpensive period correct option.

Wool scraps – The scraps for this cushion were threads pulled from about 8-9 square inches of heavy weight wool that had been washed and lightly felted. This cushion compacts consistently and evenly. It is not as dense as the raw wool. The pins stick easily with a slight depression before breaking through the fabric.

If someone regularly works with wool, this is a free stuffing option as scraps would abound. It does take some time to pull the threads apart.

Poly-fill – This is the softest and lightest of the cushions I have here. It is also the squishiest of the bunch. I found this cushion to compact unevenly and inconsistently. You can see this in the segments in the photo that are  misshapen. (I did make a second cushion to recheck my process.) This cushion takes compression before the pin will break through the fabric.

This is an inexpensive option for filling a modern pincushion. I would like to note, this fill made my eyes burn.

Walnut hulls with lavender – This cushion is filled with a commercial product for making pin cushions. It is ground hulls with lavender inside. The hulls are about the size of coarse salt on soft pretzels, maybe a little bigger. This filling was easy to fill with, though a bit messy (each hull could be picked up by hand.) The cushion is one of the heavier of this batch. It will not roll or slide. This would be a good option for a weight. There compression is even and consistent. Pins go right in with a rather pleasing ‘crunch’ feel.

The bag I have cost about $5. I expect it will make a half dozen pin cushions this size. I need to investigate the authenticity of this option.

Sawdust – The sawdust I used was somewhere between dust and shavings, some was little, soft curls of wood. This made a weighty cushion that is quite as heavy as the walnut hulls. Pins go into this cushion nicely without much depression. The cushion compressed consistently but with some uneven areas.

If you have a wood shop, this is a free option for filling that is period correct. Be sure to pick clean, dry shavings. I do not know if any particular woods would be better or worse, or if any would turn corrosive over time.

Those I still need to do:

Sand – Need to get some

Emery – It is here, somewhere….

Cotton batting –Yawn

Bran – Need to get some

Rice – Need to just make it

Human Hair – Not sure I’m going to do this or not. 

Those I did not try:

Silica beads – Though several websites say silica makes a nice pin cushion, I am somewhere between skeptical and hesitant. I think of silica in connection with moisture control, that the packets attract moisture. I really don’t want a pin cushion that attracts moisture. All I can picture is the damp-rid bins we use in storage – ewy-goowy messes.

Graphite – How I laughed at this one. I do not want any additional ground or powdered graphite in my house. Husband tracks enough home on a daily basis. *In all seriousness, I simply can not picture a graphite filled cushion going will when working with white silk.

Others also mentioned on various sites and discussion boards…. pencil shavings, rock salt, small pet bedding, vase filler , foam wrapped in batting,

What do we like in our pincushions?

Liz Clark – “The one in my little FanU sewing box is filled with wool roving, and it’s my favorite. I don’t sew with pins on the machine, but I do sometimes use a few for handsewing and the wool keeps them nicely!”

Gail Kellogg Hope – “I have sevearl. My least favorite is the modern tomato. Not enough weight & I chase it across the floor a lot. My Fat Lady, who is larger, weighted and filled with polyfill. My great-grandmother’s woven, which is filled with sawdust fo some kind…. I like the weight. Weighted is important to me. That way I’m not knocking it across the room when all I want to do is put a pin in it. It shouldn’t take two hands to put it in.”

Eileen Hook – ” I have 1. a sand filled pin cushion (one of those pin cushions with a bag attached for little bits of thread), 2. a poly filled one, and 3. a wool raveling filled one. The sand filled one is good because it’s solid and heavy enough that it doesn’t slid across the table. Poly fill is light and easy to find in qntitty, but it is pretty light and the cushions aren’t as ‘solid.’ The wool ravelings are period appropriate and I used them for my period pin cushions. I can stuff quite a lot of wool into a pin cushion!! It feels more substantial than the poly fill.”

Carolann Schmitt – “I use a magnet pin cushion on my sewing machine, ironing board and cutting table. I use a fabric pin cushion stuffed with wool batting when I’m hand-sewing. The wool batting helps prohibit rust and moisture building up on the pins. And I always have an emery bag at hand to remove the protein buildup on pins and needles.”

Others Talking about Stuffing:

• Buzzing and Bumbling: Stuffing a Pin Cushion – She assembled a list of options that includes many more than I tried.
• Mab’s Creations: Pincushion fillings –

I honestly am having trouble picturing what I actually did and made this past year. It was a bit of a trying year due to the whole rough health “sun shocking” mess. So, this one combines a little “Throw Back Thursday” and photos of the upside of the year, to make me feel better about myself

Proof to self that I actually could be outside and actually work outside…. in the sun. This day we built fences, moved a wagon sans-horses and moved corn.

Outside…. recreationalesque….

Pre-candle-light tours (left) and post wild weather Memorial Day parade (40+ MPH winds and Hail)

Even some slightly disarray time in the southern NM summer sun.

Some local fun with friends and little sister.

Now…. 2015…..

Photo: Ruby Foote, July 18, 2015 GCV.

Me

For a while now, a long while, I have found benevolent fairs to be fascinating. I am sure this can be partially blamed on the ladies fair we depicted years and years ago for Yuletide. The combination of fundraising, women in public, thematic decorating, making little items to sell and pagentry… well, fascinating.

The thesis I recommended pre-flu, on miser purses added a whole nifty twist to the fair fascination. “Women’s ‘immoral’ behaviour at fairs.” Yep.

Check this out. Laura L. Camerlengo, in her discussion of miser purses in social context through the symbolism in literature and paintings says this:

Thackeray’s sarcastic remark about fancy fairs relates to larger society’s criticisms of this method of fundraising and the women who frequented these fairs. These criticisms, as we will see, were reflected in contemporary artworks, and directly relate to the role of the miser’s purse as a foreshadower of marriage in literature and paintings. Although contemporary women’s publications, particularly of the mid-century, favored this method of fundraising, many writings by and for men criticized fancy fairs and the women who hosted them. Gary R. Dyer reflects in “The ‘Vanity Fair’ of Nineteenth-Century England: Commerce, Women, and the East in the Ladies’ Bazaar,” that “bazaars…became integrated with misogynistic notions of feminine corruption and duplicity, the discursive tradition surrounding them implies that lust, greed, and

deceit are women’s essence.”

 

The section on charity bazaars in full:

• A Visit to the Bazaar, 1820

• Embroidered slipper ready to be cut
• Doll or doll pin cushion
• Three prints – one of Jesus carrying the cross, one portrait, one unknown
• Two undetermined bottles – One tall possibly with a wicker woven exterior, one short with possibly an elephant on the label
• Embroidered braces/suspenders with a rose motif
• Feather duster with wooden handle
• Hat, possibly straw on a hat stand – trimmed around the brim with ribbon and feather trim, possibly a gold metal button in the front.
• An empty hat stand
• Print or painting of flowers against the wall
• A brown wooden box with a white and blue label that may say “bricks”
• A ball or ball pin cushion triangle pieced of red and black.
• A framed portrait – small
• A folding fan
• A domed planted flower potted – (Fernery)
• A squared bottle with something white inside
• A small reticule that appears to have a shaped base, silk bag and decoration.
• A short, squat decorative jar

In her hands is a miser’s purse and possibly a ring that may or may not go to the purse.

A comment made by a friend made me realize I don’t know much at all about Santa. Really. I don’t.

I was that child who didn’t get to believe in Santa despite her siblings and her friends all believing in Santa. (I suspect there is some deeper mental and psychological developments connected to this. But, that would be another story.) We had our own traditions; Santa came to visit; I knew Santa was Larry. As I grew I picked up bits here and there about other’s traditions, I learned about other celebrations Solstice, Yule, etc. But, I never bothered to read up on “Who is Santa?”

So, here is some poking around to figure out who the Americanized Santa is….

Starting in the early 1800’s, here is a passage from Washington Irving’s 1809 Knickerbocker’s History of New York.  Chapter IX

At this early period was instituted that pious ceremony, still religiously observed in all our ancient families of the right breed, of hanging up a stocking in the chimney on St. Nicholas Eve; which stocking is always found in the morning miraculously filled; for the good St. Nicholas has ever been a great giver of gifts, particularly to children.

I am moreover told that there is a little legendary book somewhere extant, written in Low Dutch, which says that the image of this renowned saint, which whilom graced the bow-sprit of the Goede Vrouw, was elevated in front of this chapel, in the center of what in modern days is called the Bowling Green—on the very spot, in fact, where he appeared in vision to Oloffe the Dreamer. And the legend further treats of divers miracles wrought by the mighty pipe which the saint held in his mouth; a whiff of which was a sovereign cure for an indigestion—an invaluable relic in this colony of brave trenchermen. As however, in spite of the most diligent search, I cannot lay my hands upon this little book, I must confess that I entertain considerable doubt on the subject.

I’m a little puzzled by this 1821 “The Children’s Friend” poem as some source say it was published anonymously and others attribute it to Clement Clark Moore who was long said to have written “T’was” but now, it seems may not have. It also seems to have a second name as well, “Old Santeclaus”

Old Santeclaus with much delight
His reindeer drives this frosty night,
O’er chimney-tops, and tracks of snow,
To bring his yearly gifts to you.

The steady friend of virtuous youth,
The friend of duty, and of truth,
Each Christmas eve he joys to come
Where love and peace have made their home.

Through many houses he has been,
And various beds and stockings seen;
Some, white as snow, and neatly mended,
Others, that seemed for pigs intended.

Where e’er I found good girls or boys,
That hated quarrels, strife and noise,
I left an apple, or a tart,
Or wooden gun, or painted cart.

To some I gave a pretty doll,
To some a peg-top, or a ball;
No crackers, cannons, squibs, or rockets,
To blow their eyes up, or their pockets.

No drums to stun their Mother’s ear,
Nor swords to make their sisters fear;
But pretty books to store their mind
With knowledge of each various kind.

But where I found the children naughty,
In manners rude, in temper haughty,
Thankless to parents, liars, swearers,
Boxers, or cheats, or base tale-bearers,

I left a long, black, birchen rod,
Such as the dread command of God
Directs a Parent’s hand to use
When virtue’s path his sons refuse.

Clement Clarke Moore‘s “A Visit From St. Nicholas” also know as “T’was the Night Before Christmas” was written in 1823.

This came up on FB. Please see The Museum of London’s description: http://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/object/801173.html

Book illustration showing the female prisoners’ own clothes store at Tothill Fields Prison, from page 363 of ‘The criminal prisons of London and scenes of prison life’ by Henry Mayhew and John Binny. “At Tothill Fields prison the warders in charge of the prisoners’ own clothing are wont to indicate the female characters incarcerated there by the style of bonnet intrusted to their care.” So, for example “This silk and blond … trimmed with ruches and with roses, and geraniums inside, is in for pickpocketing, and this purple velvet one, with feathers at the side, has got twelve months for shoplifting”. The warders point out “a grand Leghorn, with a fall of bugles” which belongs to an actress “who has four calendar months for stabbing her husband”. All the clothes were fumigated before storage, causing the colour to fade, but the warders reported they were as careful as possible “for it would be hard, indeed, if we spoilt their clothes when they came here, as very few that we see in this place have more than they stand up in.”

Of similar interest:

WordPress just told me this is my 7 year anniversary for blogging with WordPress. How nifty is that?

I feel like I should do something special…. hmmmm…..

Shall we do a give away???

Tell me what your favorite article has been over the past 7 years in the comments section below.

I will pick a winner at random and send them a surprise gift.

(I should add a deadline. Let’s say Sunday night, the 13th.)