Round-up of pincushion tutorials

On Wednesday, I did a little bit of web surfing   some research on felted wool pincushions, and am sharing what I have discovered:  unfortunately I can't seem to post photos from most of these links, I don't know why.
So, I will show you what I came up with in terms of felted wool yarn pincushions, and felted "stones".

The pincushions are my version of the "Ewesful" Pin Cushion, which is described below:

i Ewesful™ Pin Cushion

Product Description

How many times have you searched the house for those elusive straight pins - just when you are ready to start blocking your finished knits, they are nowhere to be found. Well, with the Ewesful™ Pin Cushion, all your problems are solved. These beauties cannot be misplaced! No 2 pincushions are the same. Let us choose for you ...

About the Ewesful™ Pincushion:The original Ewesful™ Pincushion has a soft spot in the center, a swirl of contrasting color that is not fully felted. This soft-spot provides a safe storage place for the blunt-tipped darners used by needlepointers, weavers, and knitters as well as a place to store a sharp implement.

Because there is no filling that can leak out, the Ewesful™ Pincushions can accommodate large and small pins, needles, rippers and darners. The wool stays dry in humid weather, so metal does not rust. In the original Ewesful™ Pincushion, a layer of lanolin-containing wool fleece provides a slight coating to help the pins and needles glide thru the fabric.

Meet the artist: Rikki Barnes Myran spent 10 years as a production weaver, after a decade-long career as an illustrator and graphic artist. During a sabbatical devoted to felting, she developed the Ewesful™ Pincushion, a hand-felted sewing notion made of hand-dyed wool. In 1988, the original Ewesful™ Pincushion was introduced .

The version I made look like geodes, and I like to see the insides.

The outsides are quite pretty too, especially a couple that I had finished with mohair-- the sheen is amazing.

 And these are the stones:  They are just for decorative purposes, but they look nice in a pile.

And so, this is a roundup of tutorials I found on wool pincushions of various kinds:

1.  hat shaped wool pincushions   These were featured in their magazine one time, and are made from felted wool fabric.

2. rolled-wool-pin-cushions-tutorial these use felted wool fabric:  they are made to look like watermelons, tree trunks, etc

3. teacup-pincushions  on martha stewart's site  is a how-to, and it has a 7 minute video as well, by Betz White,  but it uses felted wool sweaters.

4.felt balls and pincushions  These are made from wool roving

5. wool applique pincushion  This uses felted wool fabric, and is a little applique picture that is made like a tiny cushion and stuffed.  It is on a blog called   Knot Garden that looks really interesting, with lots of knitted and crocheted flowers and other projects -- must explore.

6. a tutorial on making pincushions out of fabric strips on the moda bake shop site, here

7. Another from the martha stewart site, how to make strawberry-pincushions

8. A blog with a lot of interesting tutorials is polka dot pineapple, and there is a nice peppermint pincushion there

9. a combination fabric and wool pincushion found on the Purl Bee

10. A make-do-pin-cushion that is attached to the top of a candlestick

Felt Saturday

I didn't plan this for today, but it just unfolded that way.  I spent most a lot of today doing things with felted wool.   
Well, I did get sidetracked for quite some time in exploring other blogs.  That must be a phase that new bloggers go through, right?

 I made lavender pincushions/sachets,

And some more little round-topped bags

And here they are in a nice pattern:

I am also rolling some more coils for braided rug.  To write Part Two of the tutorial on how to make a braided rug, I have to start a new one so that I can take some photos of the process.  So, I am mulling over whether to make it round or oval, any votes on that?

Speaking of crafts tutorials, I came across this amazing how-to site, http://craftgossip.com/ 
which appears to have instructions for just about anything, perhaps making my how-to's redundant. Well, I have a lot to do. michelle