Felted Headband

I thought I would give a felted headband a try, but didn't think it would work.  You can't agitate it by rolling back & forth in the rattan placemat.  Here I used a fabric covered plastic headband (a package of five found in the Dollar Store).

I covered the band in the same way the pencils were covered, starting with white roving as a filler, which I  wrapped back & forth two times.

I then covered the band with the main color of roving (pink), then the accent colors in thin strips, then more of the pink in thin strips.

The wrapped headband was dipped in very hot, very soapy water, then squeezed out all along the headband.  I repeated this step several times, adding additional drops of the liquid soap to make it very sudsy.   

Occasionally I would rinse the band in very hot water, to shock it into felting. 

When the felting started, I got more agressive with the band.  Lots of hot water and soap directly on the band, making it slippery enough to slide the finger tips back & forth on the outside and inside of the band.  This seemed to provide enough agitation to continue the felting process.  I repeated this step several times,  sometimes rinsing the soap out with hot water in between.  As you can see from the photo, it actually felted! 

When it was fully felted, rinse in hot water, pat dry with a towel.....

And put in the sun to dry.  A bracelet could possibly be done in the same way, but I ran out of energy.  Some of the roving came off the end of the headband, but I will simply cut the excess off and close with a few stitches.