Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Adventures in felting.

A while back (practically a year ago..) I bought some wool roving because I kept seeing these awesome wool felted beads and jewelry that people were making and selling and I wanted to give it a whirl. I found some tutorials and tried my hand at it. It didn't work out so well. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. The wool didn't stick together and become bead-like like the tutorial claimed it would. After a few tries, I gave up and stashed the roving in the back of a drawer for another time.
Just today I ran across a post on the Etsy forums mentioning felted beads and it reminded me of the roving I had. I pulled up a tutorial online and noticed this one said make sure to not use "superwash" roving because it won't felt. Oh my god. I looked up the roving I had purchased way back when and yep, it was a superwash. So all this time I thought I was a moron but really I just didn't read or do my research when I bought it. I did have another color that I hadn't tried out that wasn't a superwash. So that's what I did today! I made a few felted beads before my hands decided to get all pruney. It definately takes practice!

It starts out as a big fluffy cotton candy-like ball.


Then after you roll and roll and roll it becomes a teeny harder ball!


This is the roving I used and the beads that spawned..I wish I had more colors to play with!!


Oh, and the tutorial is here How to make felted beads

5 comments:

Angie said...

I love online tutorials. Thank you so much for sharing :):)

TheTwistedPurl said...

I love felting! I make balls for my puppy all the time. I enjoy your blog! :) The f-cup posts is too funny!

Cyndi

Jaimee McClellan said...

I didn't realize it was that easy. I have TONS of wool stored...I used to work at a historical village (in my college years) and I tended sheep - it still makes me laugh to think of it - so they would let me have the wool each Spring. I'm gonna give it a try!

magicbeanbuyer said...

it was tons of fun. good luck with it!

Michelle Engel Bencsko said...

Excellent! Good for you figuring it out!