Needle Felted Pin Cushions

I found a cool tutorial on WC Mercantile website  for making needle felted pin cushions.   Well, I have quite a 'fondness' for pin-cushions (OK, I'm a bit obsessed)  and even picked up a couple of containers at the WC Mercantile shop in Navasota to make these little creations.  Now, you have to understand.  My Thursday Night (Quilt) Bee exchanges 'homemade' gifts each year at our Christmas party.  (Yes- Christmas - not Holiday).  there are 14 of us, so that means making at least 13 of something.... Not always easy to come up with an ideas of the time to do it.  In past years, I've always wooosed out by buying Quilt calenders for everyone.  but, if you look at last years gifts  Mariet and a couple of others upped the ante on creativeness...  So, I've been thinking about making felted pin-cushions since this past summer.  

 I found pottery type votive containers on eBay, and they have been sitting on my dining room table since July!  Finally got them done last week, and can show the pictures now that the party was last Thursday.  Oh,  I did NOT hand needle felt these like in the tutorial.  I have one of those fancy dancy felting machines (Pfaff 350) that I got at Quilt festival a couple of years ago.  I used Wool Batting that I kind of shredded for the stuffing and as the base for the needle felting.  I used wool roving for the color swirls and machine felted the crud out of it.  Then made the pin cushion.

Got lots of cool things from the Bee members.  Cherry Salsa, some AWESOME Rum Cake,  a knitted Cowl from Michelle, a knitted/felted pin cushion from Mariet (these are COOL), Cup Cozies, Shoe pants, Texas Pin cushions (see a theme going on here..) and several other cool items.