Favorite pincushions

Do you have favorite pincushions or do you use just one? 

 I actually have several, and they get used for different purposes or in different locations. This one is very special. It was made by my friend Sylvia out of one of her mother's china cup and saucer sets.  I love this and it sits on my sewing table.  It makes me think of Sylvia - who moved away - but also my own mother because violets were her favorite flower.  It was a very special gift. This one holds my big darning needle and several "hat pin" size pins. I often use the saucer section to hold bobbins I'm using, or buttons.

This one was made by Carma - a former quilt shop owner and former guild member.  She made one of these for each guild member a few years ago.  They are made to look like donuts with icing and sprinkles.  Isn't it adorable?  My pins live in this one - next to my sewing machine.  It gets used all the time.  

This one lives upstairs in my family room.  It's the one that gets used most for hand work in front of the TV.  I noticed it currently has a mix of curved safety pins for basting, flower head pins and needles.  This one was a surprise from a fellow blogger. She had a "giveaway" for a cute appliqued block, and I won. When the package arrived with the block, this pin cushion was in the box too.  Counted cross stitch - and just the right size. 

This one I bought on a shop hop a few years ago.  It travels all over the house with me and holds a little everything.  

And last but not least (and not used much anymore) is my mother's pin cushion.  This is the pin cushion I remember her using all of the time.  My mom did all kinds of sewing - clothing, quilts, curtains, upholstery, etc.  She was a very skilled seamstress and even worked in a garment factory making uniforms during World War II.  

And I think - but don't know for sure - that it is actually a very old red "tomato" pin cushion that she recovered with green.  Notice the hand stitching on that bottom.  Being a child of the depression she certainly would have just fixed it up rather than throwing it away and buying a new one.  This one lives in a drawer of my sewing table these days.  There are lots of needles buried inside of it and it does still hold mom's curved upholstery needle.  I can still picture her using that curved needle to sew big buttons onto cushions.