JY and I usually get together to scrapbook but we do love to craft so we've done other things as well like beading, rubberstamping, etc... We can get each other into a lot of crafting trouble! We decided our next crafting adventre would be felting balls.
Awhile ago, I went to Dancing Leaf Farm in Maryland. I wanted to try spinning and felting so I bought some pretty roving -- unspun wool. I did take a spinning class last summer but I am not sure spinning is for me.
I have a huge stash of styrofoam balls in my basement -- leftovers from another craft project (needlepoint ornaments called Bargello Balls) from years ago. JY brought over some jingle bells and the bells and styrofoam balls made up the core of the felted balls. We had fun wrapping the roving around the cores -- the styrofoam was easier than the jingle bells.
We dunked our roving covered balls into hot soapy water -- it made a wet, scraggly looking wool thing but we were determined to make this work. We rolled the balls (like Playdoh) and the roving began to felt and finally we had balls! It smelled sheepy to me but JY had a sheep growing up and she said it was a "comfort smell" to her.
We were pretty happy with the results! There were some failures but we realized that they were fixable. We also realized that the more expensive roving made for better felting -- again proving, you get what you pay for.I put mine on top of the refrigerator where it is warm and out of the reach of cats. I had my doubts that they would dry overnight but they did!
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