A couple of days were spent making sets of juggling balls. These are made by wet felting wool down around a golf ball core. The golf balls give them a good weight for throwing and catching, and the seamless wool coat gives the balls a bit of texture, so they're less likely to slip out of your hands. With these, I wet felt the balls by hand until I get a good shape, and then toss them in the dryer to finish hardening. Let me tell you, a dozen golf balls bouncing around in the dryer makes a gawd-awful racket, even if they are coated with wool!
The rest of my felting time this week was spent making pocket camera cases. I posted a tutorial on how to do these awhile back, at http://tangibledaydreams.blogspot.com/2009/08/tutorial-felt-camera-case.html . The one that I made for that tutorial has been living in my front pocket on a daily basis for several years now, and is still going strong. Real felt is not that flimsy craft stuff you used in kindergarten--this stuff wears like iron! The only real result of being in my pocket that long is that the felt has continued to compress down, molding itself to the shape of my camera and becoming an even denser material.
Here's before and after shots of a couple of the camera cases I made this week. It really feels like pure magic. Abracadabra, add some elbow grease, and you have an amazing transformation.
And for fun, here's a couple of group pictures of the projects. The juggling balls are already up in the Etsy shop, and the camera (or cell phone, or Ipod, etc) cases will be joining them soon.
