What you need for felting

• a large towel as a work surface

• white wool batting

• a bowl of warm water

• bar soap

• a bowl of clear cold water

Felting with the Little Friends

Step 1: We start with the bar soap

First put some bar soap into the warm water and dissolve it. Then dry your hands thoroughly, because the wool batting must not get wet! Now take a small piece of wool batting and shape it into a loose ball:

Step 2: Moisten the football

Now moisten this ball with some soapy water …

Step 3: Shape a perfect sphere

… and gently roll it back and forth between your hands.

Step 4: Make it firmer with wool batting

During this you keep moistening it with soapy water. The firmer the ball becomes, the more firmly you roll it between your hands. When the small ball is nicely firm, place a new layer of wool batting around it, …

Step 5: Rinse with water

… moisten it and continue rolling the ball. When the ball is really nice and firm, wash it in clear water, squeeze it well, …

Update: The ball is already finished!

… and let it dry thoroughly. As soon as it is dry, it's ready.

Step 6: The final touch

For Matze the ball should have a diameter of about 2 cm. Of course you can also felt larger balls in colorful shades for yourselves in this way by gradually adding more and more layers of wool batting around the ball. If you want to give the ball the matching 'soccer-ball look', you can draw small pentagons on the ball (e.g. with a black fabric marker), then it will look like in the picture on the left.

Final result

And now you've reached the end of the felting tutorial. Great result, isn't it? Now the big soccer tournament can begin!