Dryer Balls

Today I thought I would give you a quick tutorial on how I make dryer balls. I hate to buy dryer sheets because I am just going to throw them away once they are used plus I didn't like the idea of adding chemicals to my clothing just to make them soft and smell good. So for years I used nothing. I had friends who thought I was crazy and that my towels must feel like burlap. I have never dad any complaints from the family unless I line dry clothes. 

I kept seeing dryer balls on homesteading sites so about a year ago I decided to go ahead and try making my own. I called up my mother-in-law and asked if she had any leftover wool yarn from one of her many projects. She sent home a bunch of remnants and my 10 year old and I set to work making dryer balls. 

I have decided that dryer balls are wonderful! You can add your own essential oils to them to freshen your laundry. If you use 5 or 6 in a load it will not only soften your clothes, but will help cut drying time!

Here is a photo of some of what we ended up with. Sorry the picture came out so blurry, but you get the idea. Since it was May when we were making them I decided to go ahead and send some to the kids teachers along with some essential oils as an end of the year teacher gift. They were a hit. 

I did my best to get step by step pictures of how I made our dryer balls so you can get started making your own.

To get started you need to make sure you are working with 100% wool yarn or this project will not work properly. At the end you need to felt your balls. So wool is essential. 

I start my balls by simply looping some yarn around my fingers a couple of times. 

Next I wrap the yarn around the loops I just made to give me something to hang onto. The first steps can be a bit frustrating since there is not a large amount of yarn to hold.

Keep wrapping until you start to form a small ball. Then keep wrapping some more. Making sure you move the yarn around the whole ball so  it is round.

After a while you should have a good size ball. The size is really up to you. I did not make the one for this tutorial very large because I started to run out of yarn, plus I was feeling a bit lazy.

To finish off your ball take a crotchet hook and do your best to pull the yarn through the center of the ball. As you can see from this picture I looped it through the side. This is really not the best idea because it may unravel slightly. It will still work, but may not be as pretty. 

I typically pull my yarn through several time before tying it off to make sure everything is secure. 

The final step to making dryer balls is to felt them so they don't unravel in the dryer leaving you with a big mess of clumped yarn along with your clothes. To felt them you can place them in an old pair of panty hoses and tie them off to make a bag. Run the balls threw the washing machine 3-4 times. I usually just toss the bag in with a load I am washing so I am not wasting water. 

After you have washed them several times they should have felted or stuck together. Above is a picture of an unfelted ball (purple) and a felted one (green). It is hard to tell from the photo, but the purple one is much looser and the green one is tight and stuck together. 

There you have it! Easy dryer balls. Don't forget to add a couple of drops of essential oils to one before tossing it in with your laundry. My families favorite is lavender or some sort of citrus.