Making Felted Balls. Wednesday October 31, 2012

Today our Wednesday craft group met on a cozy and foggy Halloween morning. We moved our gathering indoors to the back room inside the Company of Angels Store (at the Waldorf School of Orange County, California). Our craft project today was “Felted Balls”.

Click here to see the main gallery for our Waldorf School of Orange County weekly craft group past projects.

Photos from Today.
Photos from Wednesday, November 14, 2012.
December 5, 2012. Gloria donated a beautiful felted ball with 2 fawns to our school’s Winter Festival Elves Workshop.
Gallery page of past craft group projects.
Our last project: mosaic picture frame.
Snow White seeking 6 more dwarfs!
Crafty Elves needed! Winter Festival Elves Workshop.

Our Morning Together: Making Felted Balls

Christine Newell showed us how to felt a solid ball with colorful design on the surface.This photo was taken last week, when it was hot and sunny.

For a $5 donation, felting needles, foam boards, white wool battings and big bins full of wool roving of many colors were provided for our “Felted Ball” craft group project today.

Firstly, we tore off some wool batting and rolled them up very tightly, added more batting as we slowly increased the ball size. We pricked the ball with barbed needle along the way to keep the batting from unravelling.
We continued needle-felting and adding layers of batting until we have a solid ball of about 4 inches or so in diameter.
When our balls were completed with designs on them, Christine took them home to wet felt (each ball inside an individual sock) in her top-loading washing machine (more agitation than a front loading washer, she told us), then dried inside a laundry dryer.
Christine brought those thus felted balls back to craft group and we decorated them.
We needle-felt in colored roving to make designs of our choice.
Rachel suggested we make 1 to keep and 1 more to donate to the Winter Festival Elves Workshop.

Making Felted Ball with A Jingling Bell Inside:

I told of the first felted ball I did, where I started my ball by enveloping batting around a large bell. In the end, my ball did make a sound when rattled, but it was a muffled sound.
Christine suggested that one should core an “X” on a ping pong ball, then push the bell inside the ping pong ball, before wet felting batting onto the ping pong ball.
Since needle-felting will be inadvisable (needles will break as we needle-felt into the ping pong center of the felted ball), wet felting should be used.

By housing the bell inside a ping pong ball, it will keep the bell dry as well, during the wet felting process.

As usual, Rachel kept us all happy with hot tea and yogurt zucchini bread from the Company of Angels bakers. Nice!

Some of us continued making our 16″ Waldorf dolls. Kirsten’s little 16 inch Waldorf doll with scruffy hair. Irresistable!

Our very creative Kimmy has added “low lights” to her doll’s blonde hair!

Liz taking a break from needle-felting her pumpkin to share a moment with little Catherine.

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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Thank you Gloria for allowing me photograph your process of making a felted ball.

Here Gloria already has a large ball made of wool batting. She covers the ball with thin layers of colorful roving.

needle-felting the ball in thin layers of colorful roving until it is firm.

Now that the thin green layers of roving are securely attached to the ball, Gloria added some fluffy white roving to make sheep…

Adding little brown hooves to the sheep.

Ta dah! Here are some of our completed felted balls from many people in the craft group!

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Gloria’s Beautiful Ball with Needle-Felted Fawn

December 5, 2012. Gloria needle-felted not one but TWO baby deer on this felted ball, one fawn on each side! This is amazing workmanship.

It will go to a lucky little child at the Elves Workshop this weekend at our Waldorf School of Orange County Winter Festival 2012!

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Snow White Seeking 6 more Dwarfs

Let’s make “Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs” Fairy Tale dolls for our school fundraiser in Spring 2013. I can needle-felt a Snow White but I will need others to help me make dwarfs to join her. If you have a miniature handmade dwarf to donate for our auction, please bring to me on our Wednesday craft group get together!

We have the first dwarf so far! Thank you Gisela for your needle-felted fella in a soft leather belt!

Snow White and the 7 dwarfs, when completed, will be sitting on this branch for the fundraiser…

Gnarly branch from Oregon. Thank you Gisela for adorning the gnarly branch with eucalyptus seed pods, moss, twigs, goose egg river pebbles and other treasures from nature.

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Craft Kits are ready to be picked up in the front office

We need crafty elves to help stock little Christmas treasures for our 2012 Winter Festival Elves Workshop. Craft Kits are ready, please pick up in the front office. Thank you in advance for your handwork. You know the children will be so delighted to see them at Winter Festival! – November 16, 2012