Mushroom Pincushion Tutorial

I have an upcoming event at which I will be teaching members of the community how to make felt Christmas ornaments.  I'm really excited about it.  It's a Christmas event through the Frontier Homestead State Park Museum. 

I thought it would be fun to have some cute pincushions on the crafting table at this event.  So here is what I made.  You can make one too!

I found these short wooden candle holders at the local thrift store.  I bought them thinking that I could come up with some sort of way to craft with them.  I'm a sucker for unfinished wood.  It calls to me, "Craft with me!"

After thinking about it for a while, it was decided.  I would make mushroom pincushions.  Here's how I did it.

Materials:
wooden candle holders
paint
wool felt
stiff felt
stuffing (I used wool roving)
needle and thread
glue gun

Step One:
First I painted the wooden candle holders. My kids wanted to do this project with me, but they had so much fun painting they never moved onto the felt part. 

Step Two:
I cut out the felt circles.  I cut a circle with a 2 1/4 inch diameter out of stiff felt as well as a circle with a 5 inch diameter out of wool felt.  I used the stiff felt as the base of my mushroom top and the wool felt as the top of my mushroom. 

Step Three:
Using a running stitch, I sewed along the edge of the wool felt circle and pulled slowly to gather the circle. 

Step Four:
I gently rolled the wool roving into a ball and stuffed it into the gathered felt mushroom top.  Then I slid the stiff felt circle into the gathered felt circle to cover the stuffing.  I also flipped the candle holder upside down and hot glued it to the middle of the stiff felt circle. 

Step Five:
I tightened the mushroom top around the candle holder by gently pulling the running stitch.  I stitched this in place.  For extra security I also hot glued the gathered edged of the mushroom top to the candle holder. 

 Step Six:
I cut out small circles with another color of felt and simply hot glued them on to the top of the mushroom. 

 And we're done! Now you have some cute mushroom pincushions to go on your craft table and in my case, to go on the craft table I'll be teaching from.