These plush rocks are actually bars of soap covered with felted wool. Use one like a regular bar of soap; the wool coat will give a gentle, exfoliating scrub, and the felt will only get stronger with use.

Like our Roly-poly Beads, this project requires wool batting or roving, available at many yarn and craft stores and online. (Both are combed wool fibers, but roving comes in a thick cord.)

Materials

• Wool batting or roving
• Round or oval bar of soap

• Pantyhose

Instructions

1. Pull, don't cut, tufts of wool fiber from your batting or roving. Spread them out in several thin, crisscrossing layers about twice as large as your bar of soap. (Oval or round soaps work best.)

2. Wrap the bar with the wool layers so that it's entirely covered. Add a stripe in a contrasting color, if desired.

3. To keep the wool in place, put the wrapped bar in the toe of a pair of pantyhose.

4. Dip the wrapped bar into a bowl of hot water.

5. Gently pat the wool all over the bar. When suds start appearing, remove the bar from the hose.

6. Continue to gently pat and squeeze the wool over the bar. Dip it in the hot water when it gets too sudsy.

7. To see if the wool is completely felted, try the pinch test: if the fibers easily separate from the bar of soap, it's not done. When the felt feels solid, rinse the bar in cold water, squeeze it in a towel, and set it aside. The wool will shrink up a bit more as it dries.

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• November 2009