Gallery Post - Bean Bags and Pin Pillows

I showed you my Throw Pillows in a gallery post yesterday, so now I'll show you my miniature pillows.  Back in my childhood, we used to call little pillows stuffed with rice, beans or ground up nutshells bean bags.  We used to play all sorts of games with them.  Hot potato was something like Musical Chairs only without the chairs.  At birthday parties and such, children would sit on the floor in a circle, while music played, passing the bean bag around the circle.  The person stuck with the bean bag when the music stopped playing was eliminated, until only one person remained.  Then, there were all sorts of target games tossing them into buckets or through hoops or even concentric circles draw in the dirt or in chalk on pavement.  Point values would be assigned to each target.  We also just played catch with the darn things.  The WiFi generation doesn't play with bean bags anymore, so I guess these things are now pin pillows.  I suppose I could start filling them with potpourri and call them sachets!

I received this chart as a gift from a British stitcher and have long since Paid It Forward, so I can't give you designer and title information.

This a Blackbird Designs chart called, oddly enough, Red Bird.  I tend to enjoy stitching all sorts of birds.  It's one of my favorite themes.

This is a complimentary chart from The Silver Needle in Tulsa Oklahoma.  The purse shape is made up of the words "I Love To Shop At The Silver Needle."  Included with the chart was the very sweet silver plate charm of a purse.

This is a complimentary chart entitled "In My Garden" and it came from a blog that is no longer being updated.    I enjoyed stitching it in a series of over dyed cotton flosses in colorways of turquoise and lavendar.  The cotton crochet lace came from my grandmother's sewing stash.

This is another complimentary chart, Peacock, whose designer's name escapes me at the moment.  I believe I stitched this using much the same floss as the pillow above.  I also added some beads.  And I used a fabric yo-yo in a complementing  fabric to conceal the spot where I stuffed and then hand-stitched the pillow closed.  The ruched ribbon and lace trim came from my mother's sewing stash.

This chart came from an old stitching magazine and the finish involved top-stitching two linen pieces [the back is stitched with the rune for R, my initial] together and then fringing the selvages.  I like the rather rustic look of this finish.






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