Pincushion Swap- what I made and sent....

Here is the whole package that I sent to my friend Ruth in the Scrappy Pincushion Swap. I was so lucky to get her as my partner to make for because as soon I saw that I got her, I knew I was going to make something that had a Wizard of Oz theme to it. She is a big fan of Wizard of Oz and that made it so easy for me! The problem was in the sneak peeks- I could only show small bits of the house, I couldn't show the yellow brick road, or the legs or the witch's hat pin (it's on the back) or any of that dead-giveaway stuff! If Ruth had seen any of that, she's have KNOWN it was for her, as it was she seemed very confidant that she was getting it. (Of course, Ruth sparted darn near every quilt in the DQS9 round, too, so maybe she just likes everything!) LOL

Because I wanted to show it off a bit and also because it is so much fun teasing certain people, I enlisted the help of her "twin", QuiltinKimmie in a prank. Kimmie is a huge Oz fan, too, so this could work! I pretended to send the pincushion to Kimmie and I emailed her photos to post to her Flickrstream as if she had gotten it in the mail. Because Ruthie was a swap mama in that swap, I knew that she had access to info that would show that Kimmie and I shouldn't have been partnered up, so we had to get 2 of the swap mamas involved in our cover up and a few friends were in on the prank, too.

(Ruth took the following outstanding photos, after she actually got it.)


Ruthie fell for it- hook, line and sinker! Yay! While she didn't get as crabby as I had hoped, Kimmie assured me that that is just because Ruth is a fine, kind lady, not a big crybaby like me. lol




You can make out the top of the hat pin in this one....



Kimmie posted photos like this bad one below- decoy photos to make Ruth think that she wasn't getting this pincushion and we hoped that she would be jealous and pouty. :) I even wrote a card to Kimmie, so it would look really authentic and on the up-and-up. *snork* The black and red fabrics weren't actually part of the swap, they just look like something Kimmie would have gotten from a real partner. So, on Saturday Kimmie posted that she rec'd all this. On Monday, it actually showed up at Ruth's house, 2 days before her birthday, she was 29. Again. :) So Ruth really only "suffered" for 48 hours.


The pincushion sits in a green oatmeal glass custard cup and all the felt is wool. The yellow brick road is embroidered and everything is handstitched. I made the witch's legs by taking skinny chenille stems and wrapping them with embroidery floss, red for the shoes and black/white for the stockings. Then I dipped the shoes in white glue and red glitter, let that dry and then varnished them so the glitter wouldn't ever come off. By indenting the base of the pincushion with a needle and thread in the middle, it made the perfect place for the legs to nestle in. The pins were made with plastic beads and I thought they added a bit of Munchkinland weirdness to it. The little bushes are unraveled perle cotton and fray check, on a pin. For a size reference, the posts holding up the porch are toothpicks, cut way down.

I also made her a Dorothy faerie and sent her a pink chair pincushion that I had made a long time ago. Ruth was making something similar and I wanted her to see this style, too.

This was a fun pincushion to make because I knew my partner would appreciate it and love it, it's just so HER. And big thanks to Kimmie for all her help in pranking Ruth, she sold the story like a professional actress!