More and More and More Pincushions

Remember when I wrote that I love to plan and cut out multiple projects at a time?  Well, to say that I got a bit carried away is an understatement!! I have a batch of 89 pincushions I am finishing up.  I thought it was 84, but I had another five cut, sewn, and stuffed but needing finishing details.  Yes, I think that makes me "certifiable" and not just as a pincushion maker!

I thought that it seemed to take me longer than usual to finish this batch, not realizing that I was doing so many.  Fortunately, they were all different styles and sizes or I might have become suicidal!

Being a very old ex-psychiatric nurse, I remember the old days before a lot of the new psychiatric medications were available, along with the new research of brain chemistry changes that occur with mental illness. Treatment was a bit "old fashioned"  or maybe archaic would better describe our therapies?  We thought that depression was simply anger turned inward and so to treat a depressed person, prior to electro shock therapy or lobotomies, we simply gave the patient a box of tangled up yarns to wind into balls.  When the person realized the ridiculousness of such a requested task, and turned their anger outward, throwing the yarn back at us and telling us where to put it, we knew the treatment had worked and they were no longer depressed, only angry!

I do remember some not being cured by our "tangled yarn therapy" and instead becoming catatonic, likely induced by our form of harassment therapy or still others, being more like myself, would legitimize the task, enjoy the challenge, and ask if we had embroidery thread to untangle as well? Perhaps hurling walnut shell stuffed pincushions might be a new therapy of the future, another reason that every house should have at least one such special pincushion for maintaining good mental health?

No, I am not depressed, just masochistic perhaps, for during this exceptionally long period of making my 89 pincushions, I allowed myself breaks (mental ones?) to shake still more new wool, photograph it, then refold and bag it up to be sorted into separate bins according to color.....only to take it back out again soon to create my wool fiber art! Me crazy?  Absolutely! Crazy about textiles and fibers, though perhaps I will soon take another break from making pincushions and sew some fleece socks instead?