A lot of inquiries have come through lately for woolly bolas, small wool balls. They are lightweight and rather fluffy twisted bits of wool fiber.
They are made fairly simply:
- Sheep are pastured and cared for.
- Sheep are sheared.
- The wool is washed.
- The wool is picked by a machine to remove the burs and other stubborn vegetation.
- The wool is usually carded, a machine which brushes the fibers into a sheet, untangling their knots and smoothing them out to make batts or rovings or the start of many other wool projects. However, when the carding machine runs backwards, instead of brushing and layering the fibers into sheets, it twists the fibers into small wool balls commonly dubbed bolas.
We feature woolly bolas both in our Wool category and our Supplies category. They would make great stuffing for a pillow or any craft you need stuffed. Since they are lightweight, you will need only 1/2 as much as you would wool batting.
Why are they named bolas? Bola means ball, in a few different languages. Did anyone else beside thinking of the weapon, think of the spider who makes silk bolas to catch his prey with. I guess those nature radio shows I listened to as a youth did leave some lasting learning.