I found an easy pattern for making felt bowls here: http://www.betzwhite.com/blog/2006/10/cutie-pie-tutorial.html. Mine has a few modifications. Instead of using traditionally-felted balls, I used a needle (I forgot what it's called--sorry!--but it has barbs on it. Hurts like a sonofabitch when you accidentally jab yourself in the thumb!) and poked at a ball-shape I made from a rolled up piece of yarn until the mass 'o yarn was completely spherical and held together on its own. The rest of the directions I followed fairly closely. Here's my version:

I'm thinking of making more as inexpensive Christmas gifts. Whaddaya think?

I'm sure this has been done a million times before, but when I needed a new pin cushion I thought that a voodoo doll was the obvious choice. It's not made for a real person (I'd have some real issues with them if I did!), but I decided to name him Vince.
http://www.ruapokladnik.com/images/vincevoodoo.jpg
It's a little hard to tell from the photo, but he actually is grey, not white.

Hi! I apologize if this has been asked previously, but I didn't have the patience to go through 200+ pages of posts (impressive!). My mum was huge into sewing when I was little but I never had the patience for it. Now that I'm older I would love to teach myself but have found that getting ahold of a sewing machine seems to be a bit out my price range. I've also been checking out second hand stores but have had no luck. Does anyone know of someplace I could find a decent but relatively inexpensive machine to learn on? Thanks so much for any help you guys can offer!