I am starting to work on some handmade gifts. This year I am making some wool felt needle keepers with a fruit folk art themes. (Scroll back to the previous blog post to see all four shapes.) I had seen these projects in a magazine and had saved the article. I knew that one of these days I would want to make them. 
So far, I have finished two of the planned twenty needle keepers. I started working with the pear shape because the directions were given for that shape. I am pleased to say that I think theses needle keepers are just as adorable as I had hoped they would be. As usual though, they take a lot longer than I would have thought to make them. It took me all day to make two of them. So, somewhere between three and four hours each. (This does not include the time I spent cutting out the fruit shapes or the seeds). They are a bit more complicated than they look.I would like to share a little of what I learned along the way. These needle keepers are made from 100% Marino wool felt, other than the seed shapes. I used polyester craft felt for the seeds. The wool felt minimum order size was a half yard. I could not justify the expense of a half yard of wool felt for a few seeds. I would like to thank my friend, Carolyn, for giving me a heads up on working with this product. She told me that she had worked with it and found that it unraveled when she used it. She recommended washing and drying it before trying to use it in a project. I did that and the extra felting helped make the felting much tighter. The colors of the felt did not fade. They are still as vibrant as ever. I washed similar colors such as the yellows and oranges together, but some colors were washed separately.
I spent about three hours cutting out all the seed shapes for the pears and apples in one sitting. The pieces are so tiny that it was really difficult to hold onto the tiny pattern piece. I made a small template out of cardboard and cut around it. With twenty-twenty hindsight, I realize now that I should have traced a bunch of seeds onto freezer paper and ironed the freezer paper onto the felt. It would have been easier to handle and made cutting out the seeds much easier. Live and learn.
Each pear is comprised for four gold pear shapes, one neutral center shape, two leaf shapes, and five seeds. You begin by sewing the neutral center to one pear shape using a blanket stitch. Then you add the seeds, holding them down with French knots. Once all that sewing is complete you back that pear shape with another pear shape and sew it on using the blanket stitch. The second half of the pear is constructed in the same manner. You sew small strips of wool felt onto a pear shape then sew the pear shapes together. Sew both of the pear halves together and add a leaf (also two shapes blanket stitched together).
The needle keepers are thicker than you might think from looking at the photo. The wool felt is much thicker and heavier than craft felt. I really think that they are going to make some nice gifts. So far, I have made two of them. I have three more pears, five apples, oranges, and pomegranates left to make. I guess I had better get busy if I am going to get these things done by Christmas.
One more thought I'd like to pass on: One year I tried to make some felt Christmas ornaments. I used craft felt rather than wool felt. I was very disappointed in them. The craft felt does not have the richness and texture of the wool felt. I was very disappointed with them. If you want to make this type of project, I recommend using the wool felt.
