Some handwork projects span several weeks or months and others can be done in a day. Making a felted ball falls somewhere in between depending on how you make it and for what purpose. In grade 4 Waldorf schools, you may find students making and embroidering felted balls. These gorgeous masterpieces take months to do, but the end result is breathtaking.

Today's project is just on making a felted ball which still takes some time to make, but the majority of the project is complete in just one afternoon. I'm working with my 8-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son and when the felted balls are done, you'll be able to see each of their skill sets and how much I helped them. We are not embroidering these balls right now. Either they will remain just as felted balls, or become heads for dolls, or eventually be embroidered. We initially did this project with the intention to use the balls for our mental and movement math activities, but found we prefer heavier objects like bean bags or racket balls. However, these balls are ideal for safe indoor movement math provided they are used appropriately.

For this project, I used scraps of yarn from other projects to make up the core of the ball. Next, I covered the core with undyed wool. For my daughter, she wanted a pink ball so I covered hers with additional pink wool batt. The wool is from A Child's Dream and we typically use it in our homeschool for various projects including felted animals for our nature main lesson blocks. You'll only need a few supplies for this project, but you may consider working outside or in the kitchen, as it's a project that gets messy fast. Aside from a small amount of wool, and something for the core, which can be more wool, but I liked having the opportunity to use up my scraps, you'll need two bowls of water: one hot (but not too hot you can't put your hands in) and one cold (cold water from the tap is fine). You'll also need some dish soap. Have a towel on hand too!

The starting of this project takes a little skill, so I did quite a bit for my 8-year-old daughter who wouldn't have this handwork project in a Waldorf setting at her age, but because we are homeschooling, a lot of our projects end up being done by multiple children in different grades. I formed the core for her and added the wool. I also dunked it in water and formed it until is was a sphere. Once I thought the shape would hold, I handed it over to her to finish. I made the core for my son and felt confident he could manage the rest, which he could. The felting part takes a long time. I've shown more the process than I normally would show for a tutorial because this is one project in which the children (and possible an adult), would think the project is done far sooner than when it's actually done. Plan on about 15-25 minutes of felting by dunking the ball into hot water with a bit of soap and forming it in the palm of your hands and dunking it in the cold water and repeating over and over again until the ball is firm.

My daughter's ball isn't as firm as my son's because she tired sooner than he did and she didn't felt firmly. In the end, while you can tell the difference, I think they are both just fine. The funnest part is bouncing the balls in a bathtub! You can pop them in the dryer to dry, and you can leave them there as dryer balls, or you can set them in a dry place and let them air dry. It took ours a full week to be completely dry all the way through, but they will be dry to the touch within a few days.