A NEW TAKE ON AN OLD ASSIGNMENT

FELTED YARN BALL PINCUSHIONS

BEGINNING 3-D ART

dryer lint, wool yarn scraps, dyed wool roving, felting needles, old nylons

The old assignment Felt Balls was to wet felt a ball by hand, 

shape when wet then stitch to embellish when dry.

We used them as ornaments.

The kids were ok with them but not super excited.

But over last summer I experimented with recycling dryer lint & wool scraps,

and really liked what happened,

plus it was really cost effective.

So I tried it out on the kids this year and they loved it! 

And I loved the recycling.

We started off by taking a bit of dryer lint and crunching it lightly into a ball shape.

Then took multiple pieces of scrap yarn

 and loosely wrapped them around the lint until none showed.

You can use only one color or keep switching colors as desired.

Or like the one above,

work a bit of design into the wrapping.

Next we stuffed each ball into an old nylon with knots separating each one,

and I threw them in the washing machine with my other laundry.

The first time round I wasn't satisfied with the felting of the balls,

so I threw them into another load.

They were much better.

Here they all are complete with their new needles and pins.

The kids used these all year long for the many projects that required a bit of stitching.

And it kept so many of them from loosing their needles.

But then in 3rd Quarter,

 after they went thru "the real" feltmaking unit and learned the craft of both wet and dry felting,

we revisited these balls and needlefelted them into something recognizable.

We then continued to use them thru the end of the year as their pincushions.

(sorry about the little pieces of paper on top each one)

Here is a close up of several.

They were absolutely wonderful!

From left to right we have 8th grader Heer Patel, junior Kiana Hernandez,

 and 8th grader Sophia Oporto.

These next ones belong to senior Sophie Yang, junior Angelica Luza and junior Ann Luong.

And grandma here was done by senior Inna Sikar.

Adorable right??