Yesterday, on a regular visit to my favorite Summertown
charity shop, I came upon a little tealish-blue dish, about 2 ½ inches in diameter.
What caught my eye was the image that
was on it – a sweet little bird (not sure what kind). I do love the birds. The drawing almost looks like sgraffito, but
I couldn’t see or feel any indentations. I bought it and brought it home to research
it on the internet. What wee treasure had I
found?
On the back of the dish were the words: “Beddgelert Wales.” After doing a couple of google searches I
learned that Beddgelert is in the Snowdonia area of Wales. In Welch, the word means Gelert’s Grave. Gelert was the name of one of the local
prince’s favorite hounds. One day when
the prince went to look for his young son, who was not where he should have been,
he was greeted by an energetic Gelert, bouncing around, covered in blood. The prince was horrified, thinking that Gelert
had killed his little son. Immediately he
drew his sword and killed the demonic hound.
Then he heard his son screaming, and found him next to the dead wolf
that Gelert had killed to protect the little child. The prince never smiled again…See the Legend of Beddgelert for more info.
So, that’s where the little dish came from, but what
is? Again, more google-searching
revealed that it is a pin dish. A pin dish? What, exactly, is a pin dish? I immediately went to my online account at
the Bodleian Library and looked up “pin dish” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Not
there! More reading online, however,
lead to the brilliant deduction that a pin dish is just what you think it
is: a dish to hold pins!
It appears that pin dishes were and still are a big deal in
England. In America, we tend to use pin
cushions. Pin dishes are all over
British eBay. Many people (especially quilters
and seamtresses) use them to hold pins, but they are also used to hold butter, jam or even olive oil for dipping bread at the table. Wouldn’t it be fun
to have a mismatched collection of these to use for a dinner party!
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| This picture from Cherie Saunder's blog: Just a Little Something, February 24, 2011 See Cherie Saunder's blog for her comments on pin dishes |
I found a lot on the internet about how to make your pin
dish magnetic – so the pins won’t fall out.
Basically you glue a magnet on the bottom of the dish. Instructions are everywhere about how to do
this. See How To Make a Magnetic Pin Dish for details.
So now, as I continue to explore charity shops in and around
Oxford, you know what I’ll be looking for:
more pin dishes! They’re nice and
tiny and should be a breeze to pack and bring home. I’ll let you know how the search goes. By the way, do you have a pin dish?
