Thursday, September 4, 2014

The Felt Ball Rug: Part I



Welcome to this week's edition of "Lindsay likes to take on ridiculously crazy DIY projects".  My most recent DIY kick isn't one that is particularly difficult, but it will certainly end up taking quite a while to
finish.

Having just recently moved into a new apartment that is almost 100% hardwood floored, I am coming to understand the wonder of a good rug.  Those wood floors can be hard on your feet!  So the search for good rugs began.  Alas, I discovered that rugs can be very, very expensive, and unfortunately I am also very picky when it comes to home furnishings, so I also didn't want to get cheap-o rugs from Walmart.

Somewhere along the way in my searching, I remembered seeing a DIY project that involved many small, felted balls put together into a rug.  So I searched online until I found this DIY.  It then became my goal to create a rug like this.  We probably need about three different rugs for our apartment, but I thought a rug of this style would be perfect for our hallway runner, and that is what I'm working on now.



I had always wanted to learn how to needle-felt anyways, so this seems like the perfect opportunity!  Why not just dive in the deep end?  Basically, the process goes as follows:

You'll need some wool roving from your local craft supplier, a big piece of foam to work on, and a needle felting tool.   From this point it's pretty easy.  I've been measuring out a portion of wool to work with (called a 'fluff'), and starting at one end I fold it in on itself and stab with the needle until the fibers are woven together.



You then keep working the wool, rolling into a ball as you go, always being sure to keep poking until the portion you are working on is firm.  My mistake with the first few I made was that the balls were too squishy, and thus probably wouldn't make a very sturdy rug!




This DIY is still in the production stage, so there's a lot of work to do still, but I thought I'd share where I'm at with it!  Each ball takes about an hour and a half for me to form, and I'll probably need to make somewhere around 300 of them for the rug.  So I'll probably be finishing it up sometime next year!  I'm looking forward to the post!!

- The Lovely Red Fox 


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