Great Balls of Wool!

 I can hear the song in my head—“great balls of fire”  

 as I plod through my wool fiber that has accumulated over the years. 

How often do I wear wool?  All most never since I live in a warm state—oh, we do have ‘cold snap’ occasionally that lasts maybe one or two days—otherwise, there is no need to have bins of wool fiber. What to do with all that “stuff”.  I don’t want to throw away!  I could stuff pillows with some.  Or compost, if I had a compost pile.

I’m going to make balls!  Yes!  Great balls of wool!  Balls of felt!  which will be perfect to use in the dryer--then I thought, I have a baby in the house at times!.. He would love playing with these super soft wool balls.  And when thrown, no damage would be done!

Here is one bin of wool--dyed wool fleece and carded roving

I begin to roll the fleece into a small tight ball--'squirrel' moment!  Look at the crimp on that fleece!  This would be so nice to spin--

Gotta to stop thinking about the spinablility of the fleece and stick to the action at hand!

Keep adding fleece to the small ball and keep rolling until there is a large size ball.

You're saying "why are pantry hose involved?"  THis is my lazy way to make felted balls.

The traditional method means lots of soak and rolling in hot soapy water.

Lazy way--panty hose!  Do you know how hard it is to find panty hose in this day and age?  how many people wear panty hose anymore?  I did find these knee highs--will work fine for this task.

TAke that nice tight ball of wool and stuff into pantry hose

Tie a knot tightly!

Stuff as many wool balls into the panty hose, tighting between each ball.

Next, here comes the fun--throw into washing machine with hot soapy water (I usually wash towels in the load--gives the balls some friction)  When the cycle has run, pop into the dryer!  

Did say it was the lazy way to felt?!

Ta-da!  Great balls of wool! 

All felted and freed from panty hose trappings!  Easy peazy!  Still more fiber to use!  Back to making great balls of wool!!