The tomato pincushion on the left has served me well for many years. Ten years in fact. In 2002 I was doing the most soul crushingly boring graduate job ever at a television station in Sydney, and to distract myself while I plotted my escape to London I started sewing again, and also took Japanese classes at night. There used to be a big fabric store on York Street, right near where the buses stopped for the QVB - I don't remember the name but it had furnishing fabrics upstairs and hobby sewing things in the basement. One night on the way to Japanese class I stopped in there and picked up some haberdashery, including the tomato pincushion.
Since then the tomato has lived in London, Tokyo, and then come back to Sydney. It was never particularly well made, and gradually started to disintergrate. First the small tomato full of sharpening sand fell off (I think that happened in Tokyo). Next it started to leak sawdust, until it was a fraction of its former size. Some things gain sentimental value the longer you hang on to them, but I have never been particularly fond of the tomato. It served its purpose, but that was all. Sometimes I would admire handmade pincushions on Etsy or at craft stalls, but I could never justify buying one because I knew I could make one myself. Except I never did make one, so I was stuck with a leaky half-deflated tomato.
Anyway, I finally decided that enough was enough and ordered the very cute (and well written) Apple Pincushion Pattern from Craftapalooza. Yesterday I spent an hour sewing and - ta dah! - a new pincushion. It was fun choosing scraps of fabric and putting it all together. And it looks much prettier than the tomato ever did. When Ali got home from preschool he transferred all the pins into the new apple cushion, and we threw the tomato in the bin.
Some other things:
Please notice the beautiful fabric the pincushions are sitting on. It is Liberty Lantana that I ordered from England via eBay, and is quite possibly the nicest fabric I have ever bought. I am a little bit intimidated by its niceness, but when I get over that I'm going to make it into a Tova. By the way, did you know the Tova pattern is available as a PDF download now? I know a few people who were put off by the expensive postage to Australia, and while the print version is beautiful it's much more affordable (and quicker to start sewing) now that there's a PDF. And it is a really lovely pattern.
I also got some Liberty lawn from Shaukat.
Ordering online isn't quite the same as rummaging through the funny shop in South Kensington, but they have a great range of prints and the postage is reasonable and fast. Mine turned up in a week. Time to do some sewing!
