Felted Pincushions

I woke up today with a need to make some felted pincushions. I used directions from the Internet that my friend told me about (there was a $1 fee at the site for the directions which was more than reasonable--leave a comment if you'd like the website address). The directions called for using roving for the entire ball, but I had just bought some beautiful roving and didn't want it to be hidden inside a ball forever, so here's my tip (original to me as far as I know)...

I use Hobbs wool batting in my quilts because it is very fluid and light and quilts like a breeze. I have lots of small pieces of the batting leftover that I hate to throw away, so after reading the Hobbs bag to see if the wool would felt, I cut those leftovers into 1" strips and rolled them into balls to make the center of my pincushion. I then layered thin whisps of 1" wide roving color over the balls until they were covered with color. Next I felted them.

This motley crew was my first try...not too bad, but a little bald in spots...

...so I added more roving to the outside of each ball, made a couple more balls, and knotted them into a pantyhose tube...

...and came out with this good-looking bunch of wool pincushions. Fun!

Tomorrow is the Fiber Arts Alliance meeting in Asheville, NC, plus a felting class with fiber artist and yarn-dyer Nancy Bruce. I'll have to ask Nancy what she thinks of my idea. It seems to have worked out fine, but she'll know if it's a solid idea.