Pincushion Challenge

This time, the theme is “Recycle.”

I decided I wanted to make a pincushion to wear on my wrist. I figured I’d just make a little square cushion, attach a fabric strap, add some velcro and I’d be done (using some recycled fabric from an old shirt or something).

But then I looked over in Sam’s Pack & Play, and saw the little ducky wrist rattle that she doesn’t like.

A-ha! I took it apart, removed the rattle, and restuffed it. Put the little duckie back on the strap and I was done!

Luckily, I have small wrists…it actually fits me without any adjustment.

So, one recycled unused toy. :)

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The theme: Flowers.

The pins: My T-pins, which no longer have a box to be stored in. Kevin got tired of me using one of our little blue bowls. So they needed a new home.

The finished object:

The details:
It’s an Altoids box!
The fabric on top is actually a piece of the quilt that I made Emily’s bumper pad from when she was a baby (also the same quilt that is on her bed now). I added fiberfill underneath it for even more padding. It’s all hot-glued on. Then I added some lace edging to cover up the edges of the fabric. Finally, I covered a button with a bit of the rose fabric from the quilt, and glued that to cover where the lace overlapped (which will probably fall off fairly soon from opening & closing the box). Lastly, I took the top off the box and spraypainted the bottom purple (the spraypaint I used to paint the butterflies in Samantha’s room), which matches the striped part of the quilt fabric. Put it all back together and it’s perfect!

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When the orange rattle worked out OK, I had to come up with an alternative idea for my May Pincushion.

Fruit.

Well, I know I don’t have any fabric with fruit on it, so that rules out taking the easy way. So, that meant doing something with a fruit shape.

But which fruit to choose?

I mentioned it to Kevin (because he’s OH SO INTERESTED) while he was down in the basement. On my way up the stairs, inspiration hit!

I wanted to make felted cherries!

So I took the gray shetland roving I have stashed for thrummed mittens someday, the dishsoap I got Kevin for Valentine’s Day, and a glass of ice water, and headed into the bathroom. I let the hot water run in the sink, wadded up a ball of roving and added a bit of soap, and started rolling away, adding more roving as needed. Hot rinse, roll. Cold rinse, roll. Repeat. Eventually I had 2 little gray balls.

Next, I wrapped each ball with some red Cascade 220. I held the yarn on with pins.

I tossed them (pins and all) into a lingerie bag, and into a hot cycle of the washer. Okay, I tossed them in about 3 hot cycles of the washer. They started to felt, but didn’t completely, and there were holes forming where the yarn separated.

I gave up on the washer (I wasn’t sure it’d work in the first place, since the yarn was wrapped fairly tightly…there wasn’t enough friction to felt it), and took out the pins. Hey! The yarn stayed wrapped! It had felted the ends down at least. This meant I could continue on by hand…and so back to the bathroom sink we went (by this point, Emily was watching me).

I got the balls completely felted, except there were still a couple of holes on each one where the gray was showing through. I could have wrapped more yarn around, but I didn’t really want to mess with it anymore. The easy solution?

Toss them in a cup of Tropical Punch Kool-Aid to dye! 1 packet plus enough water to get the balls almost completely covered in the measuring cup (probably about 1/3 cup water–I didn’t pay attention). I let them soak for a few minutes, then nuked them for 1 minute. Let them cool for a few minutes, then nuked for 1 minute. Repeat about 3-4 times.

Gave them a good rinse, and ta-da! Red balls! And fruit-scented too.

On the left one, you can see the darker spot where the gray wool was peeking through. But it’s red now, and not all that noticeable.

Once they were dry, I took some of the Lichen-colored Cascade Lana D’Oro and knit up a little leaf, and used the tail as the stems. I stitched them onto the cherries.

All done!

And if I add an extra length of yarn, I can hang them on my sewing machine:

Just to prove that they are as functional as they are cute, I stuck them with some pins.

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