Here you will find all of the tips and tricks for each of the salt cellar pin cushions. First, general instructions.

Making it Fit

Wool balls come in a vast assortment of sizes. So do vintage salt cellars. Every effort to match the wool balls with the salt cellars has been made, but sometimes they need a little tweaking. Here is how to do that:

  • Does it need to be tweaked? The wool balls will be hot glued to the salt cellar. So it doesn’t need to stay in place when you dump it upside down. Signs you need to tweak: The ball doesn’t fit into the salt cellar–it keeps popping out. OR there is a gap around the ball when it it in the salt cellar. NOTE: Remember for the Ice Cream Sundae Balls, the spoon will go in there too–you don’t want it too tight.
  • Get it wet. Almost all tweaks just need a few spritzes with a spray bottle to dampen the wool ball where it needs to change shape (which may be everywhere). In tweaking the wool balls for the oval Love Ewe pin cushions I did end up getting a couple of the balls quite wet, but most of them could be modified with a few spritzes of water.
  • Get it into place. For balls that don’t stay put, wet the bottom half and gently wiggle it into place.
  • For balls that need to be flatter, put them in place and hold it there with a clamp. Beware of the clamp leaving an imprint in your ball. I like to add a flat surface — see below

I only left it clamped for 1-2 hours, then released the clamp and let it finish drying.

Let it dry completely before embroidering. Leave them at room temperature for a couple of days or I put mine in the oven at 100 degrees overnight. Beware of hotter temperatures — my son preheated my oven with balls inside and they ended up with brown tops. 🙁

This technique can also be used for making your red ball smaller (ice cream sundae). Get it wet and roll it between your hands for a while until it is the size you wish. Then let it dry completely.

General Stitching Instructions:

Use long needles. I primarily used milliners #1, #3, & #7. Alternatively you can use a milliners needle to get the thread from the bottom to the top of the wool ball (or back down when you are finished) and then switch to a chenille needle for the stitching. Why? Because they are too short to go through the wool ball.

Start each thread at the center bottom of the wool ball. Between stitches do not go back out of the bottom of the ball, but move from stitch to stitch. That is typically how we embroider. But here is how it looks for french knots. Instead of going out the bottom of the ball, go to the next location.

Keep the thread pulled snuggly around the needle as you pull it through.

When you finish with one color (in one location) just let the excess hang out of the bottom of the ball. It will stay out of your way and you can continue stitching from there.

When you are stitching woven picots, use a small piece of paper behind the stitch. That way the wool and stitches under it don’t get caught accidentally.

Ice Cream Sundae Instructions for adding the wool ball

We want to add the wool ball without the stitches showing. So we will go up through the big wool ball, through the bottom of the red wool ball, and back down through the big wool ball. Twice. THEN we will tighten all of the threads.

Thread (common sewing thread doubled) goes up through the wool ball, middle to middle.

Across the red wool ball, stay on the bottom 1/4 of the ball.

Back down through the big wool ball, middle to middle. DO NOT PULL TIGHT…YET.

Second thread (you can use red for both, I just wanted you to see it well. The ball will be more snug if you can keep an X on the red wool ball and a smaller X on the big wool ball and not twist the threads. Good luck.

Once the threads are all on the bottom of the green ball, pull on all 4 threads simultaneously.

Pull until it is snug and no threads are showing. Then tie off the threads on the bottom of the ball.

Alternatives for Puppy Love

The pattern includes some ideas for alternatives for puppy love. Here are some examples. If you need help making this one like your puppy, send me an email and I can help. Rachelleludwinski@gmail.com

To get those wide ears on the golden doodle/dachshund, made a 5 spoke picot. Use appliqué pins to hold the outer loops out, remove them after weaving the first two rows. At the halfway point, switch from weaving 5 spokes to weaving 3 — the two outside threads separately and the middle 3 threads together as one. Look closely at the finished ear image above.

Ironing for Blue China

The Blue China pattern includes 2 pieces of freezer paper that are ironed directly onto the wool ball–they serve as a pattern to stitch around. When you iron onto the wool ball, you don’t want to smash it. Either use a miniature iron, or if you wish to use a regular iron, first gently tap the center of the freezer paper pattern (cut out exactly) in place. Then hold the ball up to the iron to get the petals to stick down.