Needle Felted Patterned Baubles

Take your main colour wool and lay it out flat. If you have a really long piece of wool, break it in half and put the halves on top of each other.

You are going to roll the wool into a ball in the following way: Begin to roll from the bottom up, fairly tightly but not too tight...

...folding the left and right sides in as you go...

...then smoothing those last loose fluffy fibres at the top over - keep your eye on these fibres as you will begin stabbing into them in the next step.

Hold your ball with one hand so that it doesn’t spring open, and place it on your felting mat. Take your felting needle and begin stabbing with your medium needle into those last loose fluffy fibres to fix them down. The ball will start to hold its shape.

Use your felting needle to round off the ball more, wherever you stab your needle in the fibres will shrink inwards, so smooth out any lumpy or fluffy bits in this way. Give the ball a good stab all over to firm it up a little - it does not have to be rock solid!

Take some of your contrasting wool, gently stretch out the fibres into a long thin strand. Lay one end onto your bauble and start stabbing along the wool to fix your design in place.

Keep stabbing your way along the wool, tearing it where necessary if you need to create a new line on your design. To make a neat end to each line you can twirl your needle around the wool and stab in.

Thread the sewing needle and pass from the top of the bauble out to the bottom, and back up through the bauble again. Tie a knot in the two ends to leave a loop. Enjoy experimenting with different designs!