It is a inflatable ball that you can felt around!
Trish was our host and workshop leader. She lives about 10 minutes outside of Fredericton. Here is her view. Quite stunning, eh? If you pardon the chair cushion and the other eager photo happy friend.
The first thing that we had to do was chose the size of our ball and blow them up. They came with a small plug and the ball was put plug down into a small bowl so that it wouldn't roll around.
We then put wool batts draped over the ball, a second layer was wrapped around the ball.
Here is Grim. he is Trish's dog. He is only a year and a half old and he is so well behaved! He hung around, checked all of us out, and once he found out that we were friends of mom's, he never said another word.
We put a third layer of wool around the ball and any embellishments that we would like.
Next came the pantyhose. The legs were cut off and the body was stretched over the fleece.
A second and a third pair were put on going in different directions so that all of the fleece was covered.
The wool and ball were the wet down and rubbed for about 5 minutes.
And then we dribbled our fleece covered balls on a solar pool cover for about 5 minutes. Talk about a muscle workout!
We then checked to see if our fleece had felted. Once it reached soft felt stage we were able to remove the pantyhose.....
And pull the plug and deflate our ball.
Were then had to start to felt by hand. This required rubbing and rolling.
Here are out finished felt. Some are hats and some are vessels.
And then we ate! It was a pot luck and everything was good!
What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon!
8 comments:
SO. MUCH. FUN.
~Sarah
Why are there no men? I could make a felted hat. Somehow I feel cheated. I don't golf with the guys, or go bowling, or anything else. Can't I hang out with you women?
What a nifty idea for a quick, non-knit hat!!! Now I have to figure out where I can find a ball-type of thing. I have tons of ugly -- and I mean ugly -- wool yarn from a dear old lady's stash, which she gave to me (I was going to need it in Scotland, she was sure.), so I've been looking for various projects... felted bags and such. What a great idea.
Thanks for docmenting that Jackie!
I don't have much use for pretty felted things but I sure could use some new felts for my barn boots.
My felts are so used that they have holes in them and it hurt my poor old feet.
Mamoo
That's SUCH a cool thing! I've been knitting things, in order to felt them, and now ... well, this way is so much easier!
Any idea how to go about stretching out a felt hat which has shrunk? I bought one in Alaska, years ago, and as it's gotten wet it's gotten smaller. Aside from building a form in the shape of what I think the hat ought to be like (sized to my head), I'm at a loss. Ideas?
Wow that's quite the view alright! Yup I agree; a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon"! :)
this seems like so much fun. I am goning to try it!
lizzie
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