Finally Completed My Mother's Day Gifts

Okay, it took me at least a month to complete these, but not because they are actually that hard. I didn't have fabric for the whipped cream. I didn't have little heart pins. I used the wrong weight of yarn in the Embellish-knit contraption as I attempted to make an I-cord (see the photo - it's not pretty). I couldn't grasp the concept of making an I-cord long enough to fit around the saucer.

You can see my failed I-cord attempts in one of the photos. Since you are supposed to felt the I-cord and the yarn is wool, the I-cord shrinks. After shrinking a few beyond use for this project, I decided I would boil one of my completed I-cords. Well, my husband thought it looked like a tapeworm as it lost its color while boiling away. The boiling method didn't felt it and now it was the wrong color. What would I do? I finally decided to try one more time.

I used my Embellish-Knit to make one more yellow I-cord. I threw it into a hot water cycle in the washing machine and ran it through only one cycle instead of three (three being the number of cycles I use to felt most of the wool sweaters for my projects). I knew that would solve the problem. Well, it didn't. It was too short again. So...I made the saucer smaller.

These are teacup/coffee cup pincushions made of felted sweaters. Both my mom and my sister sew and while I'm sure they don't need another pincushion, I thought these were cute and unique. Oh, and I thought they'd be easy to make.

You can make your own. Here's the link:

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/teacup-pincushions?autonomy_kw=felt&rsc=header_39&xsc=eml_crd_2009_02_15