Make felt balls

I have a vague memory of making rainbow coloured felt balls as a child. I remember having lots of fun making them, but then once they were done, thinking what exactly do I DO with a felt ball? How is this actually going to be useful in my life? But now, oh my gosh. I have IDEAS of what to do with them. While looking at Instagram the other day, I saw that Elsie from A Beautiful Mess mentioned on instagram stories about how she buys wool balls on etsy, puts drops of essential oils on them and puts them in the drier to make her clothes smell nice. Well, what better motivation to have a go at making them again, especially as we have a drier!

 I actually had no idea how to make a felt ball, but if you're new to working with wool, there are a few basic principles about felting. If you had hot water, soap, and lots of agitation, you're going to make wool felt. So with this in mind, I put together what turned out to be a successful recipe for making felt balls. It's so nice when a plan comes together!

 Get some wool. It doesnt matter if it's carded or not, because youre going to pull at it so all the fibres are seperated. Remember it will shrink down a bit in size once the ball is complete.

 I popped my wool into a stocking, just to protect my hands from the hot water, and to hold the shape. Then dip it into scalding hot water, and rub a bar of soap (just plain hand soap) over the stocking. Dip in to the hot water again, and then squeeze the water out. Then roll it between your hands. Take it out of the stocking and roll roll roll in circular motions. It will feel like a soft pliable ball to start with but slowly gets more and more solid.

Once it was firm enough, and the loose ends were gone, I dipped them in clean hot water, squeezed out the excess and then put them out to dry.

Ooh there's nothing like the smell of fresh wool. And they are pretty enough to be decorative! I took two of the wool balls and put drops of lavender, bergamot and ylangylang essential oils and threw them in the drier. To be honest, the clothes didn't pick up the scent. I'll give it another go, but thought that actually, they could work in a closet or clothes drawer. and wouldn't a whole lot of little balls in different colours make a cute garland to hang on the wall? Or different sizes to hang on a mobile? Or as christmas tree decorations (an alternative to a plastic bauble)? So many possibilities!