Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 9. The joy of good pins.

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For the second year, we're bringing you a bunch of ideas for handmade Christmas gifts and also, lovely gifts for the makers in your life. (Or, gifts for you to hint loudly at with your loved ones!)

Today, we're celebrating fine pins, and no, not a good set of legs. We're talking dressmaking pins, those fiddly little things you probably use all the time but don't give a lot of thought to. Then perhaps the pleasure of using Good Pins awaits you! Good pins like these:
(All available in store or online in the Tools & Notions section.)

Frankly, for far too long we'd both been using pins, at home and at The Drapery, that were more like this:
 Little did we know what we were missing! Now, we are converted to the fine quality pins from Merchant and Mills. In particular, for garment sewing, we have enjoyed the Toilet Pins and Entomology Pins. The adorable Wooden Map Pins are newly arrived (they're red! they're wooden!) and the Spanish Lace Pins, we imagine, would be good for small-scale, delicate little projects.

The Toilet Pins we pretty much ordered in so we could make our kids snigger at the name. And then we used them. So good! Pleasingly long and sturdy with black glass heads, the extra length makes them a breeze to insert and easy to grasp and remove as you sew along.

The Entomology Pins could, of course, be used to pin out your dead insect collection. But they're also perfect for pinning through fine, tightly woven fabrics like Liberty Tana Lawn. And they're more resilient than they look, since they are engineered, we suppose, to pierce crunchy bug shells.

Also, they both pass the test of The Horrible Pincushion, seen below, which will accept nothing but the sharpest of pins. Whatever they stuff in these ubiquitous pincushions is unyielding and hardly 'cushiony'.
 If you deserve a nice new pincushion too, we have these Heirloom Tomato Pincushions, handmade in the USA. Deliciously yielding!
Treat yourself or someone you love to some beautiful new pins.

- Jane & Fiona xx

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