These pincushions were a suggestion from Diane at Venue in Ballard. She bought something similar at Bumbershoot several years ago, but doesn’t know who made them or where to get more. My apologies to that artist, whoever you are. Please identify yourself if you read this post.
I started the first pincushion with the red center at swimming lessons on Saturday; first I needlefelted a solid ball, and then needlefelted subsequent layers until I ran out of colors. This ball was fairly solid when I was done, which accounts for the smooth outlines of each color layer.
The second and third balls were made by rolling roving into rough a ball shape, needlefelting just a little to hold the roving in place and then adding additional layers. The navel orange was melon-sized by the time I stopped adding roving.
All three balls were wetfelted to varying degress. Some friends suggested I finish them in the washing machine, but that really didn’t squeeze them hard enough. So after going around with a load of towels, I wetfelted them by hand. The red pincushion needed very little work, and is still the most dense of the three pincushions. The green and orange pincushions required a lot of felting because they had to compress so much to create a solid felted core, which resulted in the swirls.
For the sake of scale, the smaller two pincushions measure 2″ in diameter, about the size of a clementine orange. The largest pincushion is about the size of a navel orange. This would be a great kid project, especially if you had a Clover needlefelting tool to keep inattentive fingers safe.
These are now available in my etsy shop.
Those are just! so! cool! I love them. I said “whoa” when I figured out what you’d done.
Those are beautiful! How do you cut them in half?
Those are beautiful! I love the colours your chose, especially for the red and the orange one: the combinations are inspired!
I made a small one a while ago in a felting class, entirely wetfelted by hand, but never got around to cutting it… I guess I should, I’ve had the time to forget which colours I used, so that would be a (hopefully nice) surprise!
I’ve been wanting to make some of these for ages — I saw some in a quilt shop years ago and thought they were the coolest thing. Thanks for sharing your method! Yours look awesome!
Love the pincushions!! I’ve just given you a blogging award, take a peek at my blog for more details
, Beth
love it, leah! so cool. what’s the scoop on the art class? i’m off to check your shop for geodes.
Those are fantastic!
So, DID you cut them in half? and how?
I swear, you are getting me closer and closer to taking up this craft. But, seriously, I don’t have the crafting room space… so stop showing this cool stuff. Really.
Wow, those are beautiful! But… I want the pretty part on the outside!