For several years in July I went to the Tea and Tents unofficial WI camping festival, they were brilliant, 600 ladies from all over the country sharing skills, ideas and friendship. It was all done on a voluntary basis, everyone did their bit at either holding a workshop or activity or helping with the running of the camp. It was sadly a victim of it’s own success as it became too much like hard work for the organisers and the last one was a couple of years ago…

…until this year! It was decided that due to the current climate, we all needed a bit of cheering up, so a virtual Tea and Tents was held on zoom. Many ladies set up camp in their back garden – or their living room! There were talks and workshops on zoom throughout the weekend. It was lovely to see old friends again.

I booked onto a course held by Paula who I met several times over the years. She was demonstrating an embroidered pincushion. The design was by Corrine Lapierre, she kindly made the pincushion pattern and a needlecase available on the WI website, but kits are available on her website, she does have some very cute felt kits.

I rummaged in my stash and found some lavender and peach felt, I then just chose a selection of DMC threads to co-ordinate.

Paula talked us through some suggested embroidery stitches and the making of the pincushion. It’s just made with two strips of felt for the sides and three circles for the top and bottom. The instructions are actually really clear and easy to follow, it was just nice having the social side of a zoom stitch-a-long!

The workshop was just for an hour, which wasn’t long enough to complete the pincushion, but by that evening it was finished. I used lazy-daisy, french knots, pistil, fly stitch and some straight stitch vaiations.

I stuffed it with a little bag of crushed cockle shells at the base – otherwise known here as pigeon grit – cheap and easily obtained at a petshop! It’s not too coarse but gives a bit of weight to the pincushion to help it stay stood up.

It was a lovely relaxing afternoon stitching with virtual friends, with a very cute pincushion made a long the way, felt is so forgiving for embroidery, it was a perfect project for an afternoon with friends.