Activity: Fall Felted Acorns

We’re excited to share a sweet craft from our farmyard family programming: felted acorns for fall.

There are lots of techniques you can use to felt wool, but these acorns are “wet felted.” Using water, soap, our hands, and a little patience, the fibers interlock as they’re worked. Watching a fluffy ball of wool transform into a compact pom-pom is a bit magical!

And how do we get our wool? It all starts with sheep. Shelburne Farms has a flock of about 70 ewes. Each year in late winter ahead of lambing season, our sheep are shorn. Shearing removes about 4 inches of wool from each sheep! Some are shorn a second time in the fall, depending on their breed and how quickly their wool grows.

A portion of our wool is professionally washed; carded (or brushed, to get the tangles out); and dyed. It’s then that we work with the wool, whether it’s spun into a bracelet or rolled into a creative craft like this.

We like doing this activity in late fall, when the forest floor here in Vermont is littered with caps!

It doesn’t take much to make these felted acorns, a delightful way to bring a bit of fall inside. Here are a few tips from Farmyard Educator Cat Wright Parrish before you begin:

• Select your cap first so you know how big to make your felted ball.
• Starting with a tightly rolled ball will make the whole process easier.
• Make sure you alternate between hot-and-cold water as instructed. These alternating dunks help the wool shrink, and the soap makes the wool fibers stick together.
• If you’d like to achieve more of a true acorn shape than a round ball, you’ll want to try to square up the sides into more of an oblong egg with a slightly pointed bottom. You can use scissors as needed to remove any loose bits of wool.

Materials

• Variety of acorn caps, harvested from outside
• Carded sheep’s wool, any color(s) you like
• Two tubs of water, one hot with a few drops of dish soap added and one cold
• Hot glue gun

Instructions

1. Select a piece of wool to become your acorn. Pull and stretch the wool apart so it is a long, thin piece.
    
2. Roll your wool into a fluffy ball, about the size of the palm of your hand. It will shrink as you felt! 
    
3. Dunk the ball in your water baths—hot and soapy water first, followed by cold water—then roll and pack it between your hands like a snowball. 
    
4. Repeat dunking and packing until the ball is firm and reaches your desired size. Set aside to dry.
    
5. Apply hot glue to your cap and carefully attach it to the felt ball. Enjoy!