Teacup Pincushion

I have a lovely neighbour in the back flat who brings me old sheets, old clothes, and old costume jewellery, beads, and bits for my crafts. I thought it would be nice to give something in return, and she does a bit of sewing now and then, so I offered to make her a pincushion. As she also collects china cups & saucers, I decided a teacup pincushion would be the perfect thing.
After a day of going around all the Op Shops, I finally found a cute little china cup with delicate pink roses on it - it is getting surprisingly hard to find china cups & saucers in Op Shops anymore. More and more they are ending up in upmarket secondhand shops and antique stores instead. There was no saucer to go with it, but I did find a pretty pale pink china saucer that had a bold rose in the centre. The rose didn't match the ones on the cup, but when you put the cup on the saucer, it covered the rose, and the pale pink of the saucer went beautifully with the cup. I then stopped off at Spotlight to pick up some trim, brought my little treasure home, and set about making the pincushion.
I chose a lush dusky rose satin from my stash, sorted out the silk ribbon and silk threads for the embroidery, and attached pearl beads and gold seed beads to 2 hatpins to dress them up - what Victorian style pincushion is complete without a couple of hatpins. Here is the final result.

 

 

 

It was so adorable I was tempted to keep it, but of course I didn't. However I always consider that a good sign - if what you have made is good enough that you want to keep it yourself, then you know it is good enough to give to someone else. So now I am going to make one for myself, to go on my sewing desk.