Felted Beads Tutorial

How to make felted beads

Those small felted beads or bobbles have always intrigued me. They make great embellishments on bags and pretty bracelets. In this tutorial I show you how to make them.

Materials

Wool roving or carded wool

Dish soap

Bowl

Towel

Access to rinsing, cold water.

 

Tutorial

Fill the bowl with hot water.

Take a short piece of wool roving into your hands. Do not do this by cutting the wool with scissors, but pull it gently off.

Slightly separate the fibers, so you get a thin wool layer, but do not pull the layer apart.

Roll this wool in your hands, so you get an airy wool ball.

Put a drop of soap dish in your hands, wet the hands with the hot water and make your hands soapy by rubbing them.

Take the wool ball and rub it gently. Do this for a couple of minutes. The wool ball will get soaked with soap and get smaller the more you rub it. Add more water in the process by dipping your hands into the bowl.

Place your hands under the rinsing, cold water while rubbing the bead. The cold shock will speed up the felting process and you can now rub the bead more vigorously in your hands. Continue until the bead feels solid and is perfectly round.

Let the bead dry for about 10 hours before using it.

For marbled beads use different colored yarns.

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