Add a handmade touch to your Thanksgiving table with an enticing wool ball trivet. We’ll teach you how to felt your own wool balls using roving. All you need is some wool, some hot soapy water, and some time! (Needle felting tools are helpful too but they’re optional) We can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Materials
- Wool Roving – we have plenty of options to choose from in our Etsy shop like our Hand Dyed BFL and our Merino & Merino Blends
- Hot Water
- Dish Soap
- Felting Needle & Tools (optional but helpful)
- Sewing Needle and Thread
Step 1
Pull off some wool and form it into a ball shape – it’s ok if the shape is rough at this point. You want the ball to be twice as big as your final desired size. If you want to make your ball larger, simply pull off another bit of wool, stretch it out, and then wrap it around your ball.
You can use your felting needle here to help form the initial ball and reduce the amount of agitation it will need to fully condense. (No felting tool? No problem! We actually just launched a brand new Needle Felting Kit that you can purchase in our Etsy store. It also makes a great gift!)
A quick note about sizing:
We made our wool balls about 1 cm. In hindsight, we would have preferred the wool balls to be a bit larger for our trivet. It really comes down to personal preference!
Step 2
Mix together 6 cups of hot water and 4 tablespoons of dish soap in a bowl. Dunk your wool ball in the soapy water for 2-3 seconds to saturate the wool. It should be fully wet but not dripping. You can shake the ball gently to get rid of excess water.
Step 3
Now you need to agitate your wool ball. There are a couple of different ways to do this. The first option is to roll it gently in between your palms for 5-10 minutes. The second option is to put it in a bowl with a lid and shake it for about the same amount of time. You can do multiple balls at a time with this method.
For both methods, you will need to dip your wool balls back into the soapy water when they start to cool down. Maintaining the toasty temperate is key.
Step 4
When the wool ball shrinks down to size you want and feels more solid and dense, then you know that it is done. Rinse out the soap with some cold water and leave the wool balls out to air dry on a paper towel or a towel.
Place them on a cooling rack to increase air flow and dry them out faster.
Step 5
When everything is nice and dry it’s time to sew your wool balls together. We tried (and failed) at a couple different methods and then we finally found one that worked for us.
We selected one wool ball to be the center of the circle and then sewed a circle of wool balls around that central circle. Then we sewed on another concentric circle and another, continuing to add circles until we ran out of wool balls.
To reduce the amount of thread that was showing (although it’s far from perfect) we made sure to squish the wool balls in tight to minimize gaps. We also gave up on trying to make both sides look good and instead decided to designate one side as the back. After all, no one said that trivets need to be reversible!
Here is a closer look at our finished trivet! We would love to see your versions too. Share them with us in our Community Facebook Group or post them on your social media and tag us @livingdreamsyarn
