How to Make Felted Wool Stuffed Toys

Angora goat hair is perfect for the hair on the heads of your felted toys.

Felted wool toys are appropriate, safe toys for babies and toddlers: there's nothing hazardous to swallow, and the toys are soft and unbreakable. Kids can even help make them. Endless variation on the felt ball theme are possible, if you have different kinds and colors of wool, and some bells to put inside them. Your felt ball toys can look like troll heads with long hair, or like comets with trails behind them.

Things You'll Need

• Feltable wool in different colors
• Mohair locks for hair
• Googly eyes to sew on
• Small bells to put inside
• Nylon panty hose
• Soap and water

Instructions

1. Cut the legs off the nylon panty hose so you just have the foot part and part of the leg. Take some of your wool and form it into a ball. Stuff it down inside the panty hose toe. If you want the head to make sound when you throw it, put a round bell at the center of the wool ball.

2. Fill a sink or basin with warm, soapy water. Immerse your stocking filled with a wool ball in the hot soapy water and rub the ball from the outside. Knead it with your hands until it starts to form a coherent mass that sticks together.

3. Take the ball out and put a lock of mohair it. Put the butt end of the mohair next to the wool, and the tips of the mohair locks outward. Put the ball back in the stocking with the tips of the mohair lock hanging out of the stocking. Put the ball back in the soapy water and continue to massage the wool ball to make it stick together into a firm ball. It will get smaller as you do this.

4. Immerse the felted ball with the mohair "hair" in a pan of cold water and rinse and massage the ball. The cold water will cause further felting and firmness of the ball. When it's firm enough, take it out of the water and lay it on a towel to dry.

5. When the ball is dry you can sew the googly eyes on it, or simply embroider some eyes on it. You can embroider or draw other facial features on the balls to make them into faces. Or you can decorate them as if they are "comets." The mohair is the tail of the comet.

Tips & Warnings

• Some wool doesn't felt well. Test your wool first to make sure it felts. Don't get superwash wool; it will not felt at all. Raw, unprocessed fleece felts the best. Bleaching damages the fibers and won't allow the fibers to felt.

References

• YouTube: Crunchy Parent Making a Felted Wool Ball