Showing posts with label pincushions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pincushions. Show all posts

Monday, October 6, 2008

more pincushions

My endless headache seems to be gone (for now) and the weather here has improved. I spent my down time this weekend making more (and more) pincushions.

This beauty is from Bird Brain Designs. I bought it as a kit at the Great Lakes Regional Seminar in Madison last spring. It took me this long to get to it but once I did, it worked up quickly.

The kit came with the really nice wool pincushion, wool fabrics, roving, felting needles and instructions. I had plenty of materials and had great fun. I used the felting needles that came with the kit and also a four-needle Clover felting needle I'd gotten.

The Clover needle was a great (safe) way to tack things down at the beginning (it has a guard to keep the needles from attacking my fingers). But it leaves a very flat appearance. I find you can have a lot of control with the single needle and can place edges where you want them and manipulate the fibers better.

The colors in the photo are actually brighter than in reality. Must have been the flash this morning. The pincushion base is beige and the green a pretty dark green. I plan to use it to hold felting needles since it's so thick and sturdy.

I'll post more of my bottlecap pin cushions tomorrow or Wednesday. More photos on my Flikr page.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Back to Felt

I couldn't not stitch for long. I saw really cute felt pincushions on Paula Hewitt's blog and had to play. Her blog led me to this and this and this and this!

Not only are they fun but they recycle: The ones with green bottoms are made over bottle caps and the little pink pincushion fits on your finger and is made from a plastic pull tab. I'm not out of bases and tabs! Oh, and I filled them with bits of minced up wool felt scraps or the cotton from the top of my vitamin bottles (it's real cotton).

I made all three last night. One went into the mail this morning and another was given as a gift this afternoon. I wanted to get these done for those purposes, so they're simple, but, oh, the ideas! I think I may have seen a bottle cap lurking in the recycle bin!