Felted Ring Bowl with Heart and Initials

We are going to an engagement party this weekend, and I picked up this cool Anniversary Dishtowel from Anthropologie to give as a little gift. It lists all of the traditional anniversary gifts up to the sixtieth anniversary. When I purchased it, the woman at the checkout offered me a gift box, to which I said "Sure!" (because, as I'm sure you remember and use as daily your mantra, the first step to a perfectly wrapped present is to acquire a box). Now the box she gave me was the right length and width, but way to deep for a dishtowel. But it is an Anthro box, and therefore awesome quality and gorgeous in itself, and a total waste to not use. So I had a dilemma. Deep box, flat little dishtowel. What to do? I had no choice but to make something else to go in the box with the dishtowel.

I love to give ring bowls as engagement or wedding gifts. They are a perfect gift for just about every couple, small, inexpensive, and practical. I'd never made one myself, but I still have a bunch of wool roving that needs to be used up. To make this bowl, I layered the roving around a styrofoam form, then began jabbing away with my felting needle. Once it was mostly felted, I removed it from the form and moved on to wet felting. This shrunk and firmed it up quite a bit, and I formed it into the shape I wanted. I allowed it to dry, and went back in with my needle and patched up any thin spots. Then I needle felted a heart and embroidered it with some cotton embroidery floss in a scratchy style to matches the towel. Finally, I needle felted the heart into the bottom of the bowl.