Dragonfly Pincushion and Finished Shawl

Today was full of trauma.  First who would believe that you can't buy postcards anymore.  We went to several stores and the big hotel in town.  They had a postcard of their 2.5 foot waterfall, pathetic.  Even went to the post office and they had none.  Finally at the library they had artist renderings of Santa Maria.  We got a beautiful one of  a corner of Broadway.  The card is going to St. Petersburg so Lee wants to take a picture of the Greek church with it's onion dome.  One thing Santa Maria isn't short on is churches.  There are five churches within easy walking distance of the house.

Original pincushion before run in with evil scissors.

It all started this morning.  I had entered a pincushion for the fair and a horrible accident happened to it involving scissors.  So I cut the embroidery into pieces so that I could recover the stumpwork dragonfly wings.  The wings took a minimum of an hour each.  So this morning at 7:00  got up and hid in the library.  My rocking chair is in there now, so I sat and doodled with rayon and cotton threads and silk ribbon.  The only lines that were marked were for the size of the cushion.  It fits inside a small cat food can.  I kept thinking that Lee would be wondering where I was but he didn't notice I was hiding.  Anyway I got a lot embroidered but lost the dragonfly wings.  I did find two wings and considered a profile view of the dragonfly.  But the rest of the embroidery is from the dragonflies view point and it would have looked funny.  So I sadly gave up having any stumpwork on the pincushion.

I continued embroidering and added some purple daisies to the design to balance the missing dragonfly.   With the embroidery done I sewed it to a backing by hand and stuffed it.  Then I placed some paper towels in the can and the pillow part sits in the can perfectly!  Then I found the other two wings!   It would have been easier if the wings had shown up before I closed the cushion.  So it will be a bit tricky but the dragonfly is to cute and to much work to leave out of the project.

New pincushion.

Other side of new pincushion.

This pincushion needs a little decoration and the body and head of the dragonfly finished.  But I will wait until I'm not so tired to finish it.

The other big trauma today was getting the gray shawl finished.  it was all done but the starching.  Apparently you can't buy starch here.  I could have made some but I was afraid I would over starch it, this is a shawl not a doily.  So instead I pinned the shawl and worked on the chain loops getting them even.  After it dried a bit I then ironed it.  I know that you are not supposed to use an iron especially with bobbles in the design.  The bobbles were a bit flat when I was done but ironing it dry was the only way to get the chain edging to behave.  Here is what it looks like on my dress makers dummy.  I think it is amazingly beautiful and it is mine.  If someone compliments the shawl I am not giving it to them!  For once I'm keeping my project.  I think it should win a blue ribbon!  Now to survive tomorrow, already made a crazy run to Beverly's for last minute glue.  Wish me luck!