Grandma's Pin Cushion

In July Matt and I made our first trip to Iowa as a married couple. The first place we went was to my grandmother's new digs in an assisted living facility. Shortly after arriving there I spotted this pin cushion and ran straight back to the car to get my camera--not to take a photo of my beloved grandmother, but to get some good shots of her pin cushion.



How awesome is this pin cushion?

And do you know who made it? My grandmother did. She started with a cow's hoof, and just played it by ear after that. I personally would have no idea where to get a cow's hoof, or what to do with it once I had one, but my grandmother clearly does.

This cow-hoof-pin-cushion would be super cool even if my grandmother didn't make it, but it's extra cool because she did. It embodies some of the very best (and most horrifying) childhood memories I have of my grandmother.

First let's talk about the fabric and lace on the pin cushion. I didn't ask her, but I would be willing to bet my car that the lace and fabric used for the pin cushion above was salvaged from some worn out thing that most people would have thrown away. When my grandmother lived in a full sized house, she threw *nothing* away. It didn't matter how tiny the scrap of material was, or how hideous the button was, my grandmother was sure it had another use and neatly tucked it away in her basement until she wanted to do something like make a cow-hoof-pin-cushion.

As a child, I loved that about her. Crafts at grandma's house were THE BEST. For instance, she had the most amazing button collection of anyone I knew. One of my most fond childhood memories is spending an entire evening in my grandmother's living room sorting through glass jars of salvaged buttons with my cousin Joni. We carefully chose our favorites and then Grandma helped us sew them onto our jammies. I couldn't wait to get home to show Mom my newly refurbished jammies!

Next let's talk about the cow hoof. My grandmother is sweet and patient, and when I was a kid she seemed to have endless time for her grandkids. But she had a dark side too (or at least what I thought of as a dark side). My grandparents were farmers, and they seemed completely unfazed by dealing with the whole animal-to-food transition. As a child I thought "running around like a chicken with it's head cut off" was just a wierd saying--with no basis in reality. Until I actually witnessed a chicken running around with it's head cut off. It was my grandmother who cut it off--in front of me. I don't think it occured her that I might find that upsetting.

Most of my cousins grew up on or near farms and gory animal death scenes weren't particularly new for them. I on the other hand was raised in a small city by a mother who was so sensitive to violence that I wasn't allowed to play with squirt guns because squirt guns represented violence a little too much for her taste. The chicken scene was sort of shocking to me--it's probably about 10% of the reason I'm a vegetarian now.

The chicken incident instilled a bit of fear in me regarding my grandmother. Sure, she'd spend hours reading children's books to me, but I was very aware that she was capable of decapitating animals with no compunction. As I grew older, I came to respect that Grandma was a skilled farmer who how to take care of business.

Not surprisingly, my grandmother's rules about wasting nothing applied to animal carcasses too. My mother tells tales of being served chicken-feet casseroles as a child. So, this pin cushion made of a dead animal's foot and salvaged lace and fabric talks to me, loudly, of my much loved grandmother.

Side note: While we were there I kept accidentally calling it a horse hoof, which seemed mildly concerning to Grandma. She would quickly remind me that it was a cow's hoof. She was very kind but also very persistent about it, kind of like you might be with a preschooler who thinks that a dog says moo--you want to be sure the kid eventually gets it right because at some point it'll be embarassing that the kid doesn't even know what a dog says (or how to identify a cow hoof).