How to make felted wool balls and Fireball Bracelet

I am almost finished with my t-shirt rug; I just have to make a trip to the Salvation Army for a few more shirts, but I like cheap, so I'm waiting for 1/2 price Wednesday. In the meantime, I rummaged through my craft stash (which seems to growing) and found wool roving. I have always wanted to try felting something, and I figured why not start out easy with some beads? Then I could make one of those cool felted bead bracelets like the ones I love on Etsy. You can get wool roving at yarn shops and craft stores. Yarn shops have loads of endlessly gorgeous colors, but at craft stores your color selection is severely limited. However, if you use coupons, it's much cheaper. I got mine at Michael's with a 40% off coupon cuz I figured it's better to go cheap in case I'm a complete idiot at doing this (which, it turns out, I'm not. I'll be hitting the yarn store soon).

This is my finished Fireball bracelet, so named because I think it looks like little balls of fire. You may not. If not, you obviously don't share my creative vision :)

To make these beads, you will need wool roving (obviously), very warm, slightly soapy water, dish soap and towels. If you are a messy crafter, you may need lots of towels. 

Start by pulling off two strips of roving that are approximately the same size. If you're going to make beads, try measuring the strips so all your beads come out the same size. One tutorial said the weigh the roving, but the strips didn't register on my kitchen scale, so I just measured them. 

Start by rolling up one strip of roving, then rolling the other strip around the first, going in the opposite direction. When you're done, it should look like this:

Next, dip the ball in the very warm, slightly soapy water for a few seconds. Add a very small drop of dish soap. Seriously small. If you add too much, you've got soap foaming up and you look like you're holding a rabid chihuahua. I've learned this from experience. If that happens, just rinse gently under the faucet.Then, start rolling!

Gently roll it between your palms without putting pressure on the ball to start, or you'll end up with a lumpy, distorted ball. Once the ball begins to take shape, you can start to put more pressure on it, gradually increasing it till you have a nice, smooth, firm ball. This takes a few minutes, so try to be patient. Some tutorials also suggested rolling the ball on bubble wrap, but it's so much fun to pop and stomp on that it never lasts longer than five minutes after it's dragged out of the box, so there's never any on hand at my house. Bubble wrap is truly one of life's best simple pleasures. 

Back to my balls (I still have enough little kid in me that that makes me giggle). Here is one that I finished rolling. But this puppy not yet done. I wasn't sure if I should make the bead hole now or after it dries, so I tried it now.

I stuck a safety pin through it, but it squished, so I had to reshape it.

I made some two color beads as well. I just pulled the roving into thinner strips and mixed the strips together into two larger strips.

Here are my beads finished and ready to dry. the two smaller purple ones I tried to make into disc beads, but I can see I need more practice in that area!

 Now on to the bracelet. You will need a large darning needle and beading elastic. You may need pliers to pull the needle through the beads. I also used wood beads between the felted ones. I thought they looked cool. And I didn't have enough of the black, glossy beads I originally wanted use. Which kinda sucks. I think that would've been cooler yet.

 Now, when these babies dry, they shrink. And the hole closes up. So don't bother putting the hole in the beads while still wet. Waste of time. Plus, once the beads are dry, they don't get all squished and distorted when you ram a needle through them like they do when they're wet.

Here's the finished bracelet! I tied off the elastic and put just the teeniest dab of glue on the knot. Seriously, just a teeny, weeny dab will do. If you use more than that, it gets all over your beads and looks crappy. After all that work, do you really want it all gooked up? I use a toothpick. It's much cleaner that way.

The bracelet looks cool and gets the thumbs up from my daughter, who spirited it away to her jewelry stash. Which is ok, cuz now I get to make another one. I still have lots of roving left. As for the big purple beads, I'm going to put some essential oil on them and stash them in my lingerie drawer (which sounds better than my underwear drawer) so all my lingerie (which sounds better than my undies) smells divine. I'm just not sure what scent to use...


Hopefully, I get to the Salvation Army Store on Wednesday so I can get my t-shirt rug done and give you all the details. If not, I'll be back soon with another project from my ever-growing list!

Chris