Sunday, October 23, 2011
I'm so Crafty.
A few years ago my kids and I learned how to make felted balls at a Scandinavian midsummer event in Minneapolis. This fall my 10-year-old son and I made a bunch of felted heart ornaments for a story that my wife was doing for Viking magazine. (She's the editor.) The November issue just arrived in the mail, and our hearts ended up on the cover! Here's how we made them:
Wet-Felted Heart Ornaments
To make this project, all you need is wool roving (available at yarn stores or online), dish soap, and hot water. A felting needle is helpful, but not necessary
Wet-Felted Heart Ornaments
To make this project, all you need is wool roving (available at yarn stores or online), dish soap, and hot water. A felting needle is helpful, but not necessary
- Start out by wrapping a bit of roving into a tight ball about the size of a marble, then continue to add looser layers of roving, alternating the direction in which you wrap, until you have a ball that's about 1/3 larger than the heart you want to end up with.
- Soak the ball in a bowl of water--which should be as hot as possible without being uncomfortable--and put a few drops of soap on the wool.
- Roll the ball between your hands, very lightly at first, then increasing pressure until the ball starts to take shape. Dip the ball in the water whenever it starts to get dry, and keep rolling until the ball starts to feel firm.
- Felted balls make a lovely ornament on their own, but if you want to shape them further, this is the stage to do it. To make a heart, flatten the ball between your hands and use your fingers to start forming the heart shape.
- You can shape the heart entirely by hand, working the wool as you would a lump of not-very-malleable clay, and using your fingernails to make the crease in the top, but it's easier if you have a felting needle. If you have a needle, just stab the wool repeatedly in a line at the top of the flattened ball until you have a deep crease. You can use the needle to shape the pointy end at the bottom of the heart, but I've found that it's just as easy to use my hands to rub the bottom of the ball into a conical shape.
- When your ball has transformed into a satisfying heart shape, it's time to finish it by rinsing it in cold water. When all the soap has been rinsed out, squeeze the heart in a towel and make any final tweaks to its shape. You can run a loop of thread or embroidery floss through the top of the heart if you want to hang them on a tree.
