Scalping Pretty Little Pincushions Book

I just wanted to chime in about the rash of scalping for the Pretty LIttle Pincushions Book.

Evidentially there is a modern belief that if Amazon no longer stocks a title it's suddenly "rare". For crying out loud people, it only came out in November, it's not even "out of print" yet.

Well truth be told Pretty Little Pincushions, while appearing to be really popular, is not in fact a rare commodity. It's available at MANY online sellers for cover price ($17.95) or less still, despite Amazon sellers offering it for upwards of $40 and a recent auction at eBay that has a copy for $150 or best offer!!!

Since I don't believe in scalping, and Amazon no longer carries it, I have changed my sidebar button to buy the book to Barnes and Nobel's site, who sells it for $14 online, and $17 in the stores. I want everyone who wants a copy to have one at the best price out there.

Email group for Pincushions

I just found a Yahoogroup for pincushion people! Over 600 Members! woo!

Now selling on DaWanda

As Etsy isn't European friendly I've opened a shop on DaWanda.com as well. All prices are in Euros, but I've done good conversions, so those wanting to buy my things in their own currency, now's your chance.

I'm growing more and more disenchanted with Etsy, and some recent questionable decisions or closures with other storekeepers and a serious lack of useful upgrades. And while I have no plans to leave Etsy right now, you never know what Etsy's plans are for me so it's good to have a backup as I could wake up and my store be gone.

I will probably eventually move my store to my own site, but for now anyway I have two.

New in shop!

Mottled graphite grey and dark red ringer pincushion, about 5" across.
100% post-consumer recycled Kunin Ecospun poly felt.

Click here to Buy in the Etsy Store - $15.00

Let's talk stuffing

I have had many people write me about what I stuff my pincushions with. I use the ordinary Polyfil.

I know some stuff with wool but I try to avoid it since I'm not using wool for the outisde due to many people being allergic to wool so I just use the ordinary cheap as you can get fiberfill. Hypoallergenic is good, recycled is good. I also pack them FULL, stuffing in as much as I can get them to hold and still keep it shut. I use the ends of my blunt scissors or even old take out chopsticks for stuffing sticks. if you can still fit in our stuffing, keep stuffing, and be sure to pay attention to the sides ad there are no flat areas. You want it to be well rounded and bounce back fully from a hard finger press.

Be sure to stuff any wrinkly areas to fill out the wrinkles entirely. No one likes a wimpy pincushion.

A few words on stuffing materials:

There is a "hard" pack or clumping kind for dollmakers, I have tried it and I hate it, clumping is right! It compresses and doesn't have the oomph. Compression is bad as I see it you want the airspace to fill so your pins/needles are held securely, when they compress they get hard for one, but they also decrease the surface area gripping our pins and I find it will allow 'shake outs" or pin droppage.

I will on occasion use polyester "Dollmaker" beads to add a little heft and weight to the bottoms (only) as well, you could even use them to fill a pincushion entirely though I won't suggest it as they would provide too little support with the round sides not giving enough surface contact to actually HOLD a needle or pin. Not enough resistance means pins would loosen with a easy drop.

The first pincushions in the 16th century were stuffed with sawdust or wheat bran or germ. I imagine the dust from one of those after a few years use was pretty bad! And probably went mealy or bug infested in time. Ew. That stuffing, as well as wool or hay, seemed to carry on for quite a while it was cheap and readily available in most households.

I've seen DottyRal use Emery sand which is what the old little attached strawberries on the old style red tomato pincushions your grandma used were filled with - and I wanted to address that. While it is a old style of sewing notion it's not the best idea for a pincushion.

When old pins dulled they became dangerous to fine fabrics as they pulled fibers, so they used the emery bags every so often to keep them sharp and clean from tarnish. But here's the problem: modern pins/needles don't dull or tarnish, and antique pins weren't plated.

Pressing a modern pin into a emery bag can scratch that highly slick chrome finish and even help flake it off with the abrasive action of being sand. You ever press a flakey finish pin through fabric? Trust me, it causes pulls. Modern pins also are of a more hardened steel, they rarely if ever dull and due to the finish to do not require sharpening. And if they do, they are cheap enough to discard if they flake or dull. Antique pins were pricey, even when they first began to be at least partially factory manufactured in the Victorian era so you tended to try to eek every cent out of them.

I hope this helped I'll think I'll be posting some more of these how-to/info posts on materials, and history (I'm a history nut) as this blog progresses.

Thanks for reading!

Now SchmaltzyCraftsy.com

Bit of fresh pixels, some new code, and voila! Like a whole new blog!

I hope to offer some special discounts, and all that jazz as well as some new things and features on cool things found at Etsy.

Now on sale - Gift Certificates!

I now have gift certificates in the store in denominations from $10 to $50. Also have one for $35 that is for $20 in store goods and a copy of the Pretty Little Pincushions Book that has eight projects of mine in it.

Go to Schmaltzy Craftsy

Book is out in stores now!

This is a really great book and I am not saying that because I'm in it! It's full of gorgeous pincushion projects from crafters from Flickr, Etsy and Craftster and beyond. If you love pincushions, or just like crafting, this is a great book and Amazon has a great for it - $12 but all major booksellers both online and brick & mortar have it.

Projects of mine included in the book:
-- Bright Flowery Pincushion (as seen on the cover)
-- Egg pincushion and Bacon needlecase
-- Basic bottlecap pincushion
-- Eyeball bottlecap pincushion
-- Flowerbasket bottlecap pincushion
-- African Violet bottlecap pincushion
-- Ladybug bottlecap pincushion
-- Death cap mushroom bottlecap pincushion

Free US Shipping in October

All orders to US addresses will get free shipping! Nothing to do just pay via paypal and I'll refund your entire shipping cost back to you.

Welcome to the new store blog!

I might eventually move this to my own domain but for now this works.

I'm hoping to put up some info, cool links and even savings and new product listing alerts for my store, Schmaltzy Craftsy.

I hope you like that you see below in the store, I have more than that listed, so please visit.

I do commissions, and if you see anything you want reproduced on my store or flickr account, just let me know!