Felting and Fiber Arts Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Ashley Hackshaw / Lil Blue Boo

How to Make Felt Balls (Wet Felting 101)

February 13, 2012 by Ashley Hackshaw

I don’t know why felt balls are so appealing…..but they are. They are soft and bouncy. There are so many projects you can use them for: garland, hair accessories, wreaths etc…..I’m just getting started. I set out today to make some of my own using a wet felting process. Wet felting is the process of taking layers of wool roving or wool yarn and combining them into one piece of felt. Making a felt ball is the easiest form of wet felting there is….taking layers of wool roving (combed wool) and creating a dense, uniform, and seamless ball. You can purchase pre-dyed packages of 100% wool roving in a variety of colors:

Or you can dye your own natural wool roving with Jacquard acid dye.…or even Kool-aid (I’ll have a separate tutorial for dyeing tomorrow):

To start the felting process, I filled a tub full of hot water and added about a tablespoon of dish soap to create a sudsy mixture. I cut pieces of wool roving into pre-measured sections so that my felt balls would end up uniform in size:

(Note: it’s not recommended to cut felt with scissors because you want to retain the long fibers….but for felt balls I’m lazy and don’t feel like weighing out a gazillion different piles of wool)

For each ball, I pulled apart the roving to create a large puff ball that I shaped into a roundish shape:

Next, I dipped the wool into the hot, soapy water and began to shape it carefully into a round shape using the palms of my hands:

Round and round I rolled the wool, careful not to press too hard, until it began to felt…..you will feel it becoming denser, and denser as you roll:

I rolled each felt ball until it was a perfectly round, dense piece of felt. Then I rinsed each ball out carefully and set it to dry. Change the hot water as it cools…..hot, soapy water is the key.

Each felt ball needs to dry for about 24 hours so it can completely dry out:

So easy even a 5-year-old can do it!

I used this batch as felt beads…..threading them onto some elastic string:

A bright and fun piece of jewelry! Stay tuned for more felting tutorials!

Click here to see other felt and fiber art tutorials I’ve done!

I purchased all of my felting materials and tools at Dharma Trading….click here to see their selection!

Play Food: Whole Wheat Pasta

February 5, 2012 by Ashley Hackshaw

A quick and easy project for today! Boo and I made some whole wheat pasta for her play market. It looks so realistic! We started with 2 pieces of oatmeal colored craft felt:

I cut the felt into half inch strips:

A pile of pasta!

We used plastic sleeves to package the pasta. Note: plastic bags shouldn’t be used for children under 3.

I created a label and printed it off onto adhesive sticker paper (from your office supply store):

It’s already in her grocery cart!

Feel free to save this graphic to make your own play pasta!

Click here to check out Project Playroom for all of our related projects!

DIY iPad Cover – Needle Felting Project

January 9, 2012 by Ashley Hackshaw

DIY iPad Cover that’s super easy to make. I was so excited to do my first needle felting project. I wanted to start out as basic as possible……so I did some applique felting. Needle felting is basically where you use a barbed set of needles to attach 2 pieces of felt. The barbed needles drag the fibers of one piece through the fibers of the second piece and the fibers tangle together to attach the two. It’s a super easy project if you use felt pieces from the fabric store….you can layer felt shapes to make any applique:

I used layered felt pieces to create a thick padded iPad cover….using the needle felting process to attach the layered pieces and to add a simple heart applique to the front:

I started out with basic felt from the fabric store. The other option for needle felting would be wool roving…..but that’s for another project soon!

I cut out four pieces of felt about 1/2″ larger on each side of the iPad:

For this project I used a multi-needle tool and needle felting foam. The foam allows the needles to pass through easily as you do your punching:

For smaller projects you can use a small brush mat like the one below:

The needle tool has a guard on it that retracts when it goes through the felt:

I took 2 of my pieces of felt and placed them on top of each other and used my needle tool to start punching through the entire surface….over and over and over:

It took me about 30 minutes to punch the felt enough to create a solid piece of felt from the two pieces:

I repeated the process for the second set of pieces:

I designated one piece to be my front and cut a small heart from a red piece of felt and placed it on top:

Using the needle tool I felted the heart piece to the purple piece….punching and punching over and over until they were completely attached:

Here’s what the needle felting looks like from the reverse side. You can see how the red fibers are punched through the other side of the purple felt to attach the two:

The front and the back of my iPad cover:

I placed the top of the iPad cover onto the back and used the needle tool to felt the sides together….just letting the needles punch through the edges:

Here is how the iPad cover looks at this point:

I used my sewing machine to sew a zig-zag stitch along the 2 side edges and the bottom edge. I actually sewed around these sides three different times. You could also use DMC thread to sew a blanket stitch by hand if you like that look instead: