An addictive craft, and a new pursuit

I can’t say that I wasn’t warned, but making these felted wool balls is rather addictive. I made them with my mom and nieces when they came to visit before Christmas, I made them with my daughter and her friend, and I made them and made them and made them. Aren’t they beautiful? (If you didn’t read my earlier post, Judy Coates Perez has a fabulous tutorial for how to make these balls from wool yarn and wool roving.)

I have used hand-dyed perle cotton and wool felt to embellish some of the balls and make them into tree ornaments, but I am not sure if I am going to decorate all of them. They look great just grouped in this silver bowl on my kitchen table. 

As the new year approaches, I am gearing up to participate in The Sketchbook Challenge. I’m going to try to work each day – or as often as I can – in a sketchbook, following along with the challenges set up by a group of fabulous artists and announced on their blog. I’ll post my progress on my blog so you can see how I’m meeting the challenge. I’ve never been disciplined enough to work in a sketchbook for any length of time, and I’m hoping this will help me stick with it. 

One of the incentives will be a great bunch of prizes offered each month by their sponsors, including Quilting Arts, Cloth Paper Scissors, Golden Artist Colors, MistyFuse, Artistic Artifacts, Pro Chemical & Dye, 3 Creative Studios, Joggles, ArtistCellar, Sakura, Textile Evolution, Dharma Trading, Blick, Strathmore, and more.