Making the connection between sheep, fleece, wool and our clothing was one of the main inspirations for this week’s craft activity - making felt balls.

The many wonderful things you can make with wool is endless, however, knitting, crocheting and even finger knitting can be quite difficult at first. Felting on the other hand, at its most basic level, is easy and fun and the results are really lovely as well as versatile. The tactile quality of the fibre as it matts in your hands the more you roll it and squeeze it was a great surprise for our children. They loved the sudsy squishy feel to this activity and the fact that afterwards they had made these great little balls that can be used for so many things! (Look out for them in a pixie houses coming up in a later episode!).

You will need:

• Bowl of warm water
• Gentle grated hand soap
• Fleece (pure merino does felt the best)
• Needle and thread / buttons

How to:

1. Take a long strip of the fleece and wind it into a ball.
2. Dip the ball into the warm soapy water, squeezing it between one hand and the other. After about five minutes you will notice the ball has started to matt, the fibres are fusing together so the initial strands that you wound are less obvious.
3. Once your ball is nice and matted you can start rolling it just like you would a ball of clay. Keep dipping the ball in the soapy water as it is the combination of friction and soap that causes the fibres to matt.
4. Keep doing this for another five minutes or so until your ball is nice and smooth. It is then ready to rinse under some clean warm water, dry and thread together or sew a button and pin onto for a brooch!

Wild Weavings

This week our craft was inspired by the Native American Dream Catchers. Although a simplified version, our wild weavings represent the Native American belief that bad dreams are caught in the web of the dream catcher, allowing only the good dreams to make their way into your sleep. Like the original dream catchers we have used only natural objects. Leaves and twigs, flowers and feathers look really beautiful threaded through the woolly twine.

You will need:

• A flexible piece of branch. You can remove any leaves but maybe try leaving them on and they will become a part of the natural weaving.

• Wool, string or twine.

• A collection of natural objects such as leaves, flowers, feathers, grasses, and twigs.

How To:

• First bent the branch around into a circle or an oval. Then join the ends together using wool, string or twine. You might find it necessary to join the ends of the branch with tape first just for extra strength and then wrap the wool around.

• Next you criss cross the wool around the branch creating a spider’s web effect. You can knot the wool at each point to prevent the wool sliding.

• Now you are ready to start weaving your objects through the wool.

Note:

Rather than collect your natural objects in advance, try making the frame and winding the wool then taking the children out into nature and collect the objects and weave as you go!

The principal of children loving to “become things” was the inspiration behind this craft activity. When we took our children outdoors to observe birds and then asked them to become the birds, we were amazed at the detail of their actions. They absolutely loved flying around like birds as well as giving much thought to the construction of their nests. The older children seem intrigued, taking on the roll of mother birds, flying around totally uninhibited. Of course the scarfs and sarongs served as great wings too, but making the cardboard wings was a lot of fun.

You will need:

• Large piece of cardboard (boxes from white goods are great, just flatten them down)
• Crayon
• Pair of scissors
• Paint (We did use acrylic paint for the purpose of the segment as the colours are so much more vibrant than poster paint, but any will do)
• Some big brushes so you can really slap that paint on!
• String to tie wings on

How to do it:

1. Lie child on top of cardboard and trace around their arms with a crayon. The basic shape if the wings is up to you.
2. Cut the wings out and bend them in half to allow for better flapping!
3. Then it’s time to get that paint on. You could talk to the child about how if you look closely at feathers, they are made up of layers of colour. We found that the more the kids blended the paint the better the wings looked.
4. Finally you just need to make a couple of holes for the string. Simply tie around the child’s wrists and watch them fly away!