Weekend crafting

Edited to say:  There is a new giveaway at the end of this post.

If any of you are following the stash bash at Crunchy Catholic Momma you may have seen these felted dryer balls.  I am always looking for a way to reduce our energy consumption, so I thought I would give them a go...The problem...I did not have that much wool yarn I was willing to sacrifice.  I do however, have plenty of wool fleece.  So I made the centers from the fleece and wrapped the outside with the wool.

 A ball of fleece...

 ...rolled up as tight as I could manage...

 ...and wrapped with yarn...

 ...until I ran out of yarn...

This is what they looked like after one run through the washer and one through the dryer.  I forgot to time the dryer to see if the load was any faster than usual...to be determined next laundry day.

Here is the funny thing...the grey/green and the beige/pink in the picture above...that was my attempt at buying colour a few years back.  It was a very determined attempt to buy "not beige" and "not grey".  I love colour, but for some reason I seem physically incapable of actually buying it and bringing it home.  I am working on it.

And, and update on my felted eggs.  The project was put on hold for a while because I was angry with it.  The cat kept running away with the eggs and shredding them...no matter where I hid them.  But I finally got to it this weekend.

 One set almost done...

 ...second set needing the blanket stitch...

 ...the hands down favourite...everybody loves this one in my house.

 ...ta-la...wouldn't this be cute in a play kitchen?  I'll have to save that idea.

So with the projects here, and a few others I have been working on, I have used up half of my stash of fleece...going from two large bins, down to one. 

And, for those of you who are interested...here is a sampling from my summer (a few years back, now) of dyeing wool with things from my yard...

From left to right:  white - just washed and brushed...no dye; technicolour yellow - goldenrod flowers with tin; that strange nameless colour - dandelion and then sage with copper;  pale yellow (really pretty actually) - is either goldenrod flowers and leaves with tin, or yarrow with alum (sorry, but on my colour swatch board they are very similar); second row: pinky/beige - peppermint with alum; pink - red rose petals, strawberries, and raspberries with alum ( the same thing with tin gives a strange grey); purple - alum with blueberries; and black - peppermint with iron.  Most of these were tried out searching for green. 

Didn't find it!  

This is how I kept track...little swatches with a tag underneath.  Clearly some have fallen off.  That's OK, they were probably beige.  I have a lot of beige in the test bin.

Have any of you ever made green with a common plant?  Please comment if you can help me out.

I'll be linking up with Crunchy Catholic Momma for stash bash, Wisdom Begins in Wonder for Fiber Arts Friday.