Abstract: Surgical sponge material is unwound from a spool and fed onto a horizontal support where it is cut to the proper length, folded once by means of a vertically reciprocable mandrel, and held in an upwardly open cavity between the two tines of a rotatable fork. The fork rolls the sponge in a cylindrical portion of the cavity to form the sponge on the tines of the fork. A pusher strips the sponge from the tines of the fork and moves it into a trough where an ultrasonic welding horn seals the free end of the sponge material to prevent it from unraveling. The sponge material is preferably woven from cotton or the like but includes one or more synthetic threads of thermoplastic material to facilitate the ultrasonic welding step.