Wool Dryer Ball Tutorial

I have been wanting to make my own dryer balls for a while now. I bought my first set a while back to help dry my diapers faster and to reduce static, and I love them! I have only had 4 of them but I have noticed they have helped with everything I wanted to. So the other day when I was at Walmart I stopped in the craft section to see if they had any wool for felting, and they did. So I grabbed a roll and decided to try making my own dryer balls while the boys napped that day.

What you will need:

100% wool yarn for felting

A pantyhose or sock

Scissors (to cut yarn)

String (NOT wool yarn)

Washer & Dryer

This is the yarn I got

Step 1: Wrap the wool yarn around your fingers about 20 times

Step 2: Take the yarn off your fingers and wrap it the opposite direction about twenty times again

Step 3: Squeeze your little "bow" of yarn into a ball and start wrapping

Step 4: Continue wrapping, switching directions often until the ball is the desired size (usually a little bigger than a baseball, but smaller than a softball. I couldn't completely wrap my hands around my completed one)

Step 5: Cut the yarn and tie it off into the ball. Some people use a knitting needle for this but I just tied it on to a string on the ball and it worked just fine

Step 6: Stuff your un-felted dryer balls into the pantyhose, tying in-between each one with a piece of string of some kind. I just made a knot after each ball and it worked for me. Make sure you don't use the wool yarn, because it will felt and not hold it all together.

Step 7: Wash in the washer machine on hot a couple times, this part was annoying for me because we only have cold rinse so I had to stand around waiting for the wash to be done and start it over again. I washed them 3 times.

Step 8: Dry them in the dryer on the hottest temperature you have

And voila- here is the completed dryer balls! 

I Got three good sized one, and then one smaller one out of this roll of yarn . I plan on going to joanns and getting some more yarn and trying to make fun colored ones. These happen to be one of my boys favorite toys to play with. I am constantly hunting them down to put them back in the dryer!

Want dryer balls but don't have the time to make them? I am selling them in my NEW Etsy shop here, for a very reasonable price. The ones I bought were almost twice as much as these, so stop by there and see what I have left.