FELT CREATIONS - OH WHAT FUN!

Yesterday was another fun day creating felt art with kids, as part of an after school program at a local school.   My class is called fiber creations and the plan is to make simple and quick projects where the kids can get instant gratification.  So far, so good!

Kids are asking "what is felting or wet felting", so I thought it would be a good idea to share my adventure with you each week based on the projects we work on in the class.
 
Wet felting is the process of taking hot or warm soapy water plus friction and applying it to wool roving(http://knitting.about.com/od/knittingglossary/g/Roving.htm) in order to create felt (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/felt).    Take a look for yourself.

Week 1: Felted Eggs
Learned how to wrap the wool roving around a plastic or styrofoam shape to create a colorful egg.
Adding warm water, then rolling the fiber covered egg in our hands until the fiber starts to bond together forming hard covering around the egg.  All the kids took felted eggs home to show their parents.

Week 2: Felt balls for jewelry or other
 1-Each student provided their favorite color(s).   I then put together small baggies filled with the favorite color along with additional accents.   It was exciting to see the happy faces as they received their goodie bag.   Of course, some of the kids added more accents or borrowed colors from their team mates stash, as they put together their felt balls.  So adventurous!

Preparation of felt ball using wool fiber (roving):
Pull off layers of thin roving then wrap it around the tip of one finger, then pull it off and start wrapping the fiber into a ball.  There are other ways you can do this, but for our class we proceeded this way. As you wrap, you will continue to use thin layers, and wrap the roving in a 90 degree angle to each other.  When you have a ball that's twice the diameter of your finished ball the wet felting process can begin.

 -After rolling the main color a few minutes you can add in more accents

A bowl of warm water is set aside, and few sprinkles of a mild dishwashing liquid is added to make it a little soapy.  I like to use Dawn, as it's gentle on my hands.   When I'm making felt balls at home I make the water hot as possible, to start, in order to speed along the felting process.

The felt ball is dunked in the water a little (or sprinkle water over ball in your hand) to get it wet then you squeeze and shape gently at first in your hands.  After a few minutes the ball will start taking firm shape, and shrink.  As it hardens you can roll it with a firmer hand.  Sometimes I roll in my hand at first, then as it hardens I roll it on a sushi mat or bubble wrap.    As the ball shrinks and gets more firm you can increase the pressure.  At home, I generally roll 4-5 felt balls in my hand at one time, after it starts to set.

-After dipping the dried felt ball in water

 -Rolling the felt ball gently from one hand to the other (no pressure until the ball starts getting firm in your hand).

Photos of the Kids felt balls at different stages above and below!

 

The felt ball is getting firm and starting to shrink

Below are more photos of the kids finished felt balls.  Some will finish as earrings, and others as neck pieces.  More to come after spring break.

More photos from my felted balls in different stages of felting

Finished wool felt balls below.  The one in the middle started out round, as it became firm I started squeezing it to make it flat instead of round.  I also added a spike to the center one for extra dimension.