A recent visit to the Fashion and Textile Museum in London left me completely captivated by an exhibition of First World War Pincushions I hadn’t even planned to write about.
I spent the day with textile artists Harriet Riddell (one of my mentoring clients) and Miesche Schiefer, visiting the museum’s brilliant main exhibition, Paint! Pattern! Print! The Textiles of Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell. Full of colour, pattern and design history, it’s worth the trip alone.
But it was a small accompanying exhibition that stopped all three of us in our tracks.
First World War Pincushions
The Material Heart: Front Line to Home Front showcases a rare collection of First World War pin cushions, often called “sweetheart pincushions”, although many were actually made by soldiers for their mothers while serving on the front line. Decorated with pins, military insignia, photographs and personal symbols, these tiny textile objects carry extraordinary emotional weight. (Fashion and Textile Museum)
What fascinated us was that none of us knew this history existed. As textile artists, we’re constantly discovering forgotten stories hidden within cloth and stitch, but these handmade wartime treasures felt particularly poignant. They sit somewhere between folk art, memory object and love letter.
The Material Heart brings together rare, historic pincushions. While the bulk of the collection consists of sweetheart cushions made by front-line soldiers during WWI (1914–1918), visitors can also see diverse, earlier variations dating from the Victorian and Edwardian eras (1850s–1910s)
Created by curators Amy de la Haye and Simon Costin (who studied Theatre Design and History of Art at my local, Wimbledon School of Art) this is the first exhibition dedicated to these remarkable pieces of British textile history.
If you’re interested in textile art, embroidery, craft history, British folklore or the stories objects can tell, don’t miss it. These First World War Pincushions are incredible.
The Material Heart: Front Line to Home Front runs alongside Paint! Pattern! Print! The Textiles of Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell at the Fashion and Textile Museum until 13 September 2026, with entry included in the main exhibition ticket. click: Fashion and Textile Museum.
Read more on my blog – Propaganda textiles at the Fashion & Textiles Museum.
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