How to Make Felt Wool Balls

Felted Wool Balls or Beads DIY Craft Tutorial 

easily create homemade wool dryer balls or felted beads for decoration

Like many of you who have been wet felting or needle felted for a while, wool balls or beads are probably one of the first things you tried making. Me too! I have been creating handmade felted wool balls in all shapes, colors and sizes for several years now. I have used them mainly in making felted jewelry and also as embellishments for fiber art pieces. 

You can see many examples of what I've done with my own felt wool beads at my Flickr gallery. I still have shoes boxes full of all sorts of colors that I keep on hand for future projects. Honestly, I just find them fun and so easy to make that I use up my scraps on them. My five year old also likes making them with me as they are a very kid-friendly felting project.

DIY Giant Felted Wool Ball Craft Tutorial

4 Easy Steps for Making Gigantic Felt Wool Balls 

Create these funky handmade felted wool balls in no time!

I've been making wet felted wool balls of all sizes for many year now. Most of the felted balls I create are about an inch or less across for jewelry and embellishments, but recently I decided to make some mega big felt balls for brand new craft tutorials coming up. There's a lot of instructions out there on how to make these now that wool dryer balls are popular to use instead of commercial dryer sheets. Most of those craft tutorials use a large amount of wool roving or yarn wrapped tightly in a circular shape and then wet felted into these large balls. That's a great way to make giant felt balls, but not the only way. In order save a little from my wool roving stash, I opt to use plastic wiffle balls as the center for mine. It also makes the final felt balls lighter weight overall. These are great for kid toys too!

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How to Make Perfect Felt Wool Beads or Balls

Craft the Perfect Wool Felt Bead or Ball 

A Collection of How-to Tips & Tutorial Links

Perhaps you are an old pro at crafting handmade wool beads or you might be a curious new beginner to the world of feltmaking. Either way, here you'll find my personal tips and links to a few excellent photo tutorials online. 

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First start with my article below to give you an idea of how the process works. It covers information about making both round and rolled (or sushi style) felted wool beads. 

Click here for my 9 best crafting tips on felting beads.

Below you'll find a simple list of things you'll need to wet and/or needle felt so gather those up. Then visit some of the tutorial resource links and get started crafting your own woolly balls. 

BASIC FELTING MATERIALS:

For wet felting techniques: wool roving, warm water, dish soap, a bowl or sink
For needle felting techniques: wool roving, felting needle or multi-needle tool, dense foam or brush base

TUTORIAL RESOURCES ONLINE:

Combo wet and needle felting tutorial by The Zen of Making

Needle felted ball tutorial by Simple Joyful Living

Wet felting tutorial by rosiepink

Free downloadable instructions by Made in Lowell 

Here's an alternative method using pantyhose and your washing machine by Handmade Felt Toys. I've made all sizes of felt balls many times using this technique. To get a more uniform shape, I needle felt them first into a loose round shape, then insert them into the hose and tie them tightly in place. This method doesn't always get the most perfect shaped result so be forewarned. It is a great way to make many, many felt beads in bulk quantities though.

Also, I wanted to mention that the wet felting technique for making wool balls is a great project for kids too. To make it even easier for very small children, use some pantyhose to insert the wound wool roving as in the washing machine method above and let them felt with their hands instead. Felt balls make great little animals when sewn together that the kids can decorate. Check out this adorable catepillar by JulietK as an inspirational example.

If you are at a loss as to what to make with your newly made beads, check out my flickr photo gallery for some ideas. Happy Felting!

Do have some sweet tips of your own or questions about the process? 
Please share in the comments or get in touch with me directly.

Stripes, Dots, Swirls, and Solids - A Big Variety of Handmade Felted Wool Beads

I just finished this batch of round felted wool beads over the weekend. I created them individually through a combination of both needle felting and wet felting so quite a lot of time went into the almost 100 beads seen in the photo. There's a big variety of black and white beads that have swirls, stripes, and dots. I also made some matching solid colored beads. I think the polka dot style in both black and white are my personal favorite. It is very tempting to keep all of them and just display them in a big glass bowl, but most likely, some will be sold for supplies in my Etsy shop once it reopens after the baby is born. I will probably use some in my own jewelry creations as well. For now, they certainly make a pretty picture! (At least I think so.....)