Hand embroidery on linen, cotton fabrics. The center panel was originally the top of a pincushion handmade and embroidered by my father's mother, who left school after 8th grade to help support her family by doing needlework. She gave it to me when I was in my early teens and learning to sew.

Technical challenges:  After decades of use the pincushion fell apart but I had saved and wanted to re-use the embroidered section. My original design was far too elaborate. Got rid of all the fancy-pants hoo-ha and went back to much simpler nesting borders. My original hand-quilting was also too fussy and much harder to undo: removed one stitch at a time with tweezers.