I know this is a long shot and very off-topic before I post it, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway because I'm desperately hoping that one of the people in our diverse membership will have some experience with my problem and possibly offer some help.

Background: I am a business major who is taking two art classes this semester just because I like messing around with art supplies. One of the art classes is fibre arts, which concerns tapestry weaving, felting, dyeing, etc. Anyway, I have a project due in a few weeks, but I am supposed to have the supplies by the end of spring break, which has just started.

It is the "Off the Loom" project, meaning no weaving. I am supposed to use one of the other processes we've been taught, such as felting. The only other requirement is that I have to have some kind of content or idea expressed to elevate it above mere craft to "Fine Art". I'm going to use dry felting, a process that consists of repeatedly stabbing pieces wool with special needles to tangle and compress the fibres into felt.

I have a vague idea of what I want to do (a wall hanging), but I do not know how much wool I need to buy. Wool roving runs between $20 and $25 (or more) per pound (you get more than it sounds like, because wool is light and fluffy, but still it's pretty expensive for me). I am a broke college student, and my (very generous) aunt is paying for my supplies. I'm extremely grateful to her, so I don't want to overestimate what I need too badly and ask her to buy me too much because I feel embarrassed asking her to help me out as it is. On the other hand, I don't want to be halfway through the project and run out of supplies. I've tried asking my art teacher how much wool I need, and she hasn't been able to give me an estimate. (She is a wonderful person and a knowledgable teacher, but kind of flakey and bad at estimating). There are no stores within a few hours of my house that carry felting supplies, so I have to buy this stuff online without being able to see it or touch it in person or get an idea of how big it is.

I'm not being lazy about this, before I asked here I asked on another board (where they yelled at me), and I have spent 4 hours Googling through more than 50 websites today trying to find some kind of guidelines, but to no avail. I hope someone will give me the answers I need in time (I have ten days in which to get the supplies here. When you consider shipping and handling time, that's only a day or three), but if not, I am hoping that somewhere there is a board member who could offer her experience.

Question: Is there anyone here who has experience with needle felting? I need some guesstimates about a few things to help me calculate what I need and fast. If you can answer ANY of my questions, I'll be eternally grateful.

How big is a pound of wool roving? How big is an ounce? I know that the breed of the sheep it is from has some impact on the size, but just a rough estimate using an average or common type of wool is fine, I just need SOME idea. (The size of a basketball? A ping pong ball? A yard long?)

About how many pounds/ounces of wool would I need to make a 1 foot by 1 foot flat, felted square? (If I know this, I can multiply it out to find out how big to make my wall hanging.)

I really hope you'll all forgive me for asking what may be stupid questions, but I can't find any active needle-felting-specific live journal groups or message boards or anything to ask (most haven't been updated for months or years), and as I said, I got yelled at on another board for asking. (I probably should have thought to ask here first, as a lot of the members here are crafty, and this is a lot more friendly of a board.)

Slightly on-topic, now that I'm learning how, I think that one could probably make some interesting AG accesories with felting.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer,