The Mystery of The Balls

You may remember that when I started my Upcycling course, the first week we made some strange looking balls. These were a project in wet felting, and we used wool tops (fleece) which we wrapped around a pebble and 'massaged' in to knit the fibres together. We then had to take them home with the instructions to either put them through a 60 degree wash or to boil them and then not to even think of unwrapping them until the next class.

I chose the boiling method and as I missed the next class did unwrap one and cut it open as per the class example... as you can see it wasn't a great success!! So I put the other through the machine and it immediately felt firmer/tighter. This was because of the agitation as well as the heat

Here it is before cutting it open

And afterwards, which reveals the pebble and gives you a cocoon/conker/onion.... Not sure what it is, but it does look organic! The pebble inside is a souvenir we picked up from Findhorn beach in Scotland. The beach is completely covered in almost perfectly spherical pebbles - beautiful!

Obviously I wasn't going to leave it just as it was, so I have made a little reminder of some of our holidays. The Slate we picked up in Wales, and the fleece is reminiscent of all the sheep's fleece I collected from where the sheep had rubbed up against the fences - that was a bit nostalgic, because I can remember as a child being asked by my Nanna to collect some bits of fleece whilst we were on holiday so that she could put it between her toes, as she had bunions.... she didn't want a pressie she just wanted bits of fleece LOL - the pebbles as I said were from our holiday in Scotland and the piece of charred driftwood was picked up during a week spent on a local beach. All precious family times!

Not sure there is any significance of the beads and wire that I wrapped around the cocoon.. I just like using beads and wire!