Juggling balls and restocking the shop

Now that most of the Christmas crafting is done, I'm starting to pay attention to my poor neglected Etsy shop again. My stock there has been dwindling down, and it is time to do something about that. So today I started taking photographs of some of the juggling balls sets that I had lying around. They had been in a little craft store, but unfortunately it was a victim of the struggling economy and closed its doors earlier this year. So I had some back stock.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/118381201/juggling-balls-in-green-blue-and-yellow

https://www.etsy.com/listing/118383303/juggling-balls-in-green-purple-yellow

https://www.etsy.com/listing/118383887/juggling-balls-in-red-green-and-white

https://www.etsy.com/listing/118384637/juggling-balls-in-blue-and-yellow-wool While I was updating, I got a request for a custom set of juggling balls, in blues and greens. I figured while I was at it, I'd make up a whole batch of a half dozen sets in some of the more popular color patterns. So, before dinner I spent awhile wrapping golf balls in wool roving.

After dinner, I rolled up my sleeves and got into the physical part of the process. I coat my hands with a drop of the dish soap, pick up one of the proto-balls, and soak the bundle under some hot running tap water. Then I toss the ball back and forth between my hands, rolling it around and around, until the wool shrinks down and velcros itself together. Once I had them all well felted, I threw the whole lot into the dryer to tumble around for a final hardened finish. Man, that many golf balls in the dryer are loud!

I'll be taking more pictures and getting these up in the shop over the next few days. Time to re-stock!