Granny's Hat..

Hi everyone!

I found some sentimental inspiration this week, inspiration in something that I mindlessly see and touch every single day. Mindlessly that is until it pricks me! My pin cushion,  there have been many new pin cushions  shoved aside for this little old stained one made by Granny's precious hands.

Granny was a nurse and midwife back in the day when nurses were required to wear those little nurse caps and uniforms with aprons that were so white they looked blue!  She had many stories to tell of her years as a midwife and all the births she attended, her favorite in particular was of triples being born before the doctor made it out to the house. What I find so amazing about Granny is that she had so little time in her busy schedule, she worked at the old city hospital teaching student nurses, midwife and was a private duty nurse to the Reynolds family, always on the go even during the night, yet she found time to make all her clothes down to her under garments! Granny didn't have just a few dresses she literally had hundreds, and most were hand sewn or sewn on a foot pedal machine. And to top it off, she kept all her grand daughters in dresses that she made. The only thing about Granny's dresses...she made one style! one pattern for all her dresses and that was the drop waist 1920's, every dress was made the same but you would get some that she had smocked or pleated, with pockets and without or a lace panel added, they were all beautiful even though they were all shaped the same!

                      ( photo credit  http://theshopfloorproject.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html)

 Okay, back to Granny's Victorian hat pin cushion!
The fabric for this little pin cushion comes from a pair of her white nurse stockings, as you can see stockings back then were made of really thick and heavy material. The poor little hat has so many pin holes and so many stains I sometimes wonder if Granny would be upset with me for not being brave enough to try and clean the precious thing, but it would break my heart if it didn't hold up to a cleaning! So, I decided instead of taking a chance on losing her pin cushion I would make a replica of it and retire hers into safe keeping...

Now I'm finding that I absolutely love making these little hats!

Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs'

Catlyn