I have been hearing so much about these 'felt ball garlands' over the last few months that as Christmas began to approach I decided that we MUST add one to our christmas decorations. I started to look to just buy one but was shocked at the expense and unwilling to spend that kind of money on something that I could so easily make myself!
So, with that in mind, I began to research "how to make a felt ball garland". Each Christmas we have a different colour scheme in our house and with this year being traditional I was looking to make an all green or all red garland, but I found that when buying felt balls, you buy them in multi colour and multi colour only! So, I was going to make my OWN felt balls and Evelyn and I trotted off to spotlight for a felt ball making adventure!
I will warn you that this little project became quite a big project! It was quite time consuming and often maddening, but last night when I hang my garland on the wall, all that torture was definitely worth it!
So here is what you will need:
*Wool roving
Waxed string
Hot water
Soap (I used morning fresh liquid soap but you can also use a bar of soap)
A needle
Patience!
*Make sure you get the wool that specifically says roving. As I bought one that just said wool merino and it was impossible to felt!
And here is how you make a felt ball
You will need to have a bowl of hot soapy water and a bowl of cold clean water
Cut your roving into pieces. I did one test ball before cutting all the wool to make sure that it would create a big enough ball at the end
Roll your dry wool into a loose ball shape and then dip into the hot soapy water
Begin to roll, without too much pressure as you do not want the ball to felt in the wrong shape
Make sure you have enough soap to create a lather, without bubbles
You will begin to notice your ball will harden and the wool will start to "felt"
Keeping dipping it in the hot water as much as you need to
Keep rolling until the ball becomes quite dense and you cannot flatten it between your fingers
Dip the ball into the cold clean water to rinse and to shock the fibres
Let the balls dry for 24 hours before stringing them
Once your balls are dry simply thread them onto your string with a needle
Here's a lesson I learnt the hard way - Do not thread all the balls onto the string before knotting them into place as the entire thing will knot and you will have to start again!
For my felt ball I wanted them a ball and a half space apart so I threaded one ball at a time and then knotted it into place. However you dont have to knot it if you like the haphazard look.
I am yet to find a good storage solution for this so if you have any ideas please do let me know!
