How to Make Felted Wool Dryer Balls
Fickle.
I’m pretty sure that’s what I am. Fickle. Because at some point, I said that this was my favorite project, and this, and then probably this. Really, you can assume that any project in which I don’t totally screw things up is my favorite.
AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM!
Felted wool dryer balls – to help dry your laundry faster, keep it free from static, and to give it a little something to play with while it’s rolling around in the machine.
To be honest, I didn’t expect this one to work out so well, because I fudged a bit and didn’t follow the tutorials I found to the letter. You’ll see.
But let me tell you something, sister, these are amazing. I’ve done three loads with them now, and my clothes are soft, wrinkle-free, and I’m pretty sure they came out poppin’ fresh long before they ever have in the past.
What Are Felted Wool Dryer Balls – And Why Do You Want Them?
Instead of loading your laundry – that soft, precious fabric that touches your skin every day – with stinky chemicals that are in dryer sheets, these felted wool dryer balls will do the same job in less time.
In a nutshell: The wool soaks up some of the moisture in your laundry as it dries, but then evenly distributes it into the air – helping your dryer stay humid longer, which exponentially reduces static cling. In addition, this “soaking and releasing” action makes your clothes dry faster. And all of these things together mean fewer wrinkles.
Best of all, if you make them tight enough and awesome enough, they’ll last up to 5 years. That’s 5 years without having to worry a single bit about static, dryer sheets, wrinkles, buying supplies, and failed presidential debates (you shouldn’t ever worry about that last thing, anyway). This is the best part of felted dryer balls. Mine, for three, cost about $5 total. For five years of drying pleasure.
(Compare that to what the average household spends on fabric softener sheets, why don’t you?)
So what are they exactly? Pretty much just what I said. Felted wool.
You can go about making them several different ways, but each way is going to involve … dum dum dum … WOOL. And that’s pretty much it. You can use wool roving (which is why my balls look the way they do) or wool yarn – and you can even reuse/recycle an old wool sweater for the middle if you want. (Yep. What I did, too.)
Wool roving, however, is my favorite “look” for these babies, because it stretches and pulls and gives a very unique felty look, something you’re probably not going to get as much of with wool yarn.
This is wool roving:
Hand-dyed wool roving, in the flesh. Or hair. Or ... you get the picture.
And this is what wool roving looks like when you stretch it out a little bit and then pretend like it’s your own hair:
It was a long day.
(Note: You can see the burn from last week on my arm there. see how it’s almost completely healed? GO Homemade Salve!)
I bought my wool roving from the lovely Etsy seller Ingrid Moss, because it’s all hand-dyed (by her) and comes from a farm in Canada where she assures the animals are well loved. But this Etsy seller has some absolutely lovely roving, too. Or, you could look for it in a local craft store, if that’s what floats your boat.
How to Make Felted Wool Dryer Balls – A Quick Tutorial
From start to finish – not including washing time – this project took about 15 minutes. I know, I know. SO much time to ask you to take out of your day.
Like I mentioned, I went about this in a bit of a wonky way. I didn’t want to use all my wool roving on dryer balls that I wasn’t completely sure would turn out right, so instead, I went hunting through the closet for something old and 100% wool.
Luckily, I found this monstrosity in the very back, which I purchased for $3 a few years ago, thinking it was a kitschy thrift store find. It was not. It was just big, and alpaca, and everyone who saw me wear it (the ONE time I did) covered their stupid laughing mouths and turned their dumb heads away, embarrassed for me.
100% alpaca wool. 100% hideous.
Not to mention, it has no less than three dozen holes which, in a blind thrift store daze, I must’ve missed when I bought it. So, because it’s 100% wool, I decided to sacrifice this baby for the good of my other clothes by cutting it into strips and then turning it into the “center” of my balls.
I’m going to say “my balls” several times throughout this tutorial, so get your giggles out now.
What You Need to Make Felted Wool Dryer Balls
In place of my scraps of poncho-from-days-of-olde, you can use scraps of a 100% wool sweater, 100% wool yarn, or just wool roving all the way through. But here’s a look at what you’ll need:
Wool roving, wool scraps, and pantyhose. These things will make magnificent dryer balls.
- Wool roving or wool yarn
- Wool scraps (optional)
- Pantyhose
- Scissors (to cut things, if you need to)
Not much, is it? No, sir. Not much at all.
1. Twist Your Wool Into a Very Tight Ball
I did this with my monster poncho scraps by tucking the ends under and turning, adding more scraps to tuck under as I turned the ball around.
Alternatively, you just roll your yarn or wool roving up into a very tight ball. Just like it sounds.
Ponchicus Nightmaricus - taking a new form.
2. Cover the Wool Scraps With Wool Roving (if you’re doing it my way)
If you’re not doing it the same way I am, you can just skip right on down to the next step, once you have a ball that’s about the size of a tennis ball.
Otherwise, wrap that wool roving around as tightly as you can. It may not be as tight as you think it should be, but you’ll take care of all that here in a minute with the felting step.
Here is what my balls looked like after I’d wrapped all the roving around it, and before they went to live in the pantyhose for a few washes.
Not really very ball-like, are they?
As you can see, the balls weren’t very round. And at this point, I panicked and thought for sure I’d messed my entire life up with the use of one horrible poncho. But I pressed on to …
3. Tie the Balls Tightly, and Separately, In Your Pantyhose Leg
You’ll want to snip the pantyhose off around the crotchal area. This will make things easier.
Then you just roll the leg down, put your first ball in, and then tight a knot tightly – securing it in well. It’s never pretty when your balls fall out of your pantyhose.
In fact, this is not an optional step. Without this, you’ll just end up with a matted bunch of goop at the bottom of your washing machine.
One dryer ball left to stuff in the pantyhose.
Once you have them all in the pantyhose leg and secured nice and tightly, you’ll have something that looks like this – or even more creepy, if you’re making a bunch of dryer balls:
It's the ghost of ponchos past.
4. Wash Your Dryer Balls, In the Pantyhose, on Hot – and Then Dry Them
Now all you do is toss this lumpy snake into the washing machine (you can do this with a load of clothes if you don’t want to waste a wash) on HOT. (HOT.) Then put them in the dryer and let them dry all the way.
Then, optionally, you can do this step again, just to make sure everything is felting correctly. I did. And I’m glad I did.
After that, you just cut the balls out of the pantyhose and set them free to live their lives as static-busting laundry servants. (I don’t know if you have to cut them out, but I did, because some of the wool crept through the pantyhose, making it impossible to untie.)
And then they look like this:
Just about the size of a tennis ball. Perfect.
Then, they also look like this:
Like little laundry babies, all nestled up to rest. Until Thursday.
How to Use Your Felted Wool Dryer Balls
Throw them in the dryer with your clothes, and let them go to town.
That is all.
And don’t forget! You can also add a few drops of essential oils to these, to give your laundry a super fresh-smelling boost.
Have You Ever Used Felted Dryer Balls?
I know several of you have, because we’ve had conversations about this before. But what do you think?
You love your dryer balls?
Did you make them yourself? And if so, how did you do it differently than I just did?
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100 Responses to “How to Make Felted Wool Dryer Balls”
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This is great! We’re about to move into an apartment with a dryer (that’s new to us!), and I will so make these dryer balls. I even have random pantyhoses no longer useful for my legs that are just begging to be part of a craft project.
P.S. I pinned this to pinterest – I hope that’s ok!
I just posted about the nasty chemicals in dryer sheets and some flowers I made out of used ones. I’m searching for an alternative and think I’ll give this a go! The idea makes sense and decreasing both dryer time and chemical use is a win-win. My SIL has shee – maybe I can do something with all the wool she has or just use thrifted sweaters. Thanks for the idea and instructions!
This is one of the best blogs I have ever read! I love your sarcasm and ideas :)
I had read a couple of other tutorials about making woolies and I kind of got your idea too b/c I only had one skein of wool yarn. My friend suggested buying a small wooden ball to put in the middle, but 1) I figured that would eventually start to mold and rot. and 2) I didn’t want to spend any more money. I too had some already felted wool sweaters I had tried to make into shorties for my son…..miserable failure, but at least I’m able to use the scraps to make my dryer balls. My first 2 are in the wash right now. I still have some yarn left, but I wasn’t sure if this was going to work. Great minds think alike.
Personally I never run the dryer hot with essential oils due to their flammable nature. You could always keep one wool ball on the shelf to run through the dryer on a cool cycle. I find a small piece of cloth works just fine for this as well. Here’s a newspiece from last year on fires breaking out in the U.K. linked to both synthetic fragrance oils and essential oils: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8683740/Women-buying-essential-oils-blamed-for-rise-in-house-fires.html.
I have my dryer balls in the wash as we speak! crossing my fingers they work! I used a 100% Merino wool sweater i picked up from the thrift store and wool roving over top to make them pretty! I can’t wait to see how they look! I will let you know how it goes. Thanks for the great tutorial!
Haven’t used them; but now am going to try them. I wonder if my rougher buffalo will work. The close-to-body down doesn’t felt, but the outer rougher coat does. I have some of this that was going to become a felted rug. Wonder if it can be ball centers too.
I absolutely love these! Made them a couple of months ago and have been using them exclusively. Yeah, no more dryer sheets and the stinky smell! Although I have to admit the dryer sheets are really good for cleaning your barbeque grills.
Hi, girls! I just love wool dryer balls :) They are an excellent way of greening your laundry!
P.S. I bought mine from http://allurewool.com/
Great Tutorial, and you are Funny! I really enhjoyed the read!
When I tried this, I had trouble getting my wool to felt. I tried “stripping” it, since it was from a thrift store sweater and I wasn’t sure if the wool was superwash or not. The balls would stay together for a few loads, then start to fall apart. Finally, I wrapped them up tight again, and used a big embroidery needle to push some thick thread through. I pushed it through and tied it off in three different directions. Now the balls stay together and have probably been through 50 loads.
Just made these last week and they’re great! I used a 50% off coupon at Michaels to get wool roving for $3.79, but only used 1/4 of it for 3 balls, a $1.99 sweater from the thrift store and a pair of pantyhose from the 99 cent store for a total of $6.77. Already planning on using the rest of the roving to make more for a friend. Although it did take me more than 10 minutes(several episodes of Frasier on Netflix) to wrap them all tightly enough! Thanks for the tutorial! Quick question: if I put essential oil on the balls, do I need to wash them periodically? Don’t want oil stains on my squeaky clean clothes…
I would suggest using Young Living essential oils. They are the world leader in essential oils. Please be picky about which oils you use because although they won’t tell you, when you buy oils from health stores & other online companies, they can have ADDITIVES, (waxes for 1 example) therefore they are not as safe as they claim! Please use only therapeutic grade oils. Since YL goes through such thorough testing for each & every oil, they surpass any other oils available. I’m NOT trying to throw a sales pitch, I truly want to get out the awareness of how unhealthy & potentially dangerous most of these other oils can be. The clothes absorb the oils thus entering our bloodstream! This is one thing it’s NOT ok to buy ‘generic’. I’d be happy to send some info to anyone who wants the purest of oils. They’re so safe I use them on my precious 93 yr young grandma! My sponsor # is 1418033. LOVE THIS BLOG!!!
I made dryer balls they turned out beautiful. Used them today and I never had so much static in all my laundry days. What should I do?
I made these and love them, but since winter and dry air have moved in, my laundry is REALLY full of static. Any suggestions?
I hand made some a few years back… I forgot I had them til I read this post, though come to think of it- I may have seen one in the boys’ toybox a few months back…hmm…off to locate my balls lol.
Btw – this post is hilarious! I freaking adore your sense of humor and writing style! Thank YOU for making crunchy fun!
silly question but do the felted balls have to be dried in the dryer? I want to make them for my sil and mil but do not have a dryer myself- by choice actually.
Pinstrosity sent me! This is a really cool idea. I hate the way wool feels personally, but if this works, I may have a friend make these for me. Thanks!
First of all, allow me to say, I LOVE your blog and your sense of humor! I laughed all the way through this post! I was laughing so hard (“my balls”), sometimes, that my husband looked at me like I was on fire, so…..I read it to him, too. He didn’t find it as funny as I did, but I think it’s because he already has balls……. just sayin’…… Have a great day!
So, I set out in search of a tutorial for how to make wool dryer balls, and instead I ended up laughing until I cried at your descriptions. Thank you for being both instructive and hilarious! Now I’m going to go make some balls… hahaha!
Oh, lordie. If I’d known there was something this entertaining floating around, I’d have looked up wool dryer balls ages ago. Well, OK, maybe not, since I’d never heard of the notion until recently. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia not to long ago, though, and while there’s not much science about it, to me it seems logical that it would be bad to overload your system with all sorts of chemicals, so I’ve been looking for options.
Anyway, I’m now trying my damnedest to get my balls to felt (my balls – heh heh heh), although they seem to be getting only vaguely fuzzy. A few more rounds of hot water, maybe. Would they still work if I leave them in their little pantyhose homes?
There are comments about using oil in them and being flammable in a hot dryer. Perhaps try some coves or a piece of cinnamon stick inside.
sorry cLoves!
Hi ya! Just wondering how much wool I should order? How much roving wool (approx grams) did you use? TIA xxxx
I love your tutes (been helping me go more crunchy). I caught this one after trying to find out what to do with the leftover felt balls from felted soap. If the balls are not staying together after your first tumbleor two, you can dribble water on the balls and add a little liquid soap. Then rub and massage in pantyhose. Rinse in cold. Dribble more warm water and soap. Keep rubbing/massaging and applying slight pressure until balls are nice and hard. It will be sudsy and slippery, but easy rinses in cold water. Then dry in dryer.
OMG. After reading what I wrote, I didn’t realize how dirty it sounds. Happy balls, y’all!
For static, use 1/4 c vinegar (white) in rinse cycle. If you want to use EO’s, add them to your wash rather than dryer. I make my detergent at home and add EO’s this way.
Quick question–made these this evening with wool yarn wrapped tight and covered with roving. Before washing they felt firm like a tennis ball. They just came out of the dryer and feel very squishy soft. I haven’t taken them out of the pantyhose yet but think they aren’t felted enough or are they squishy normally? I just ran some very hot water over them and squeezed the water out a few times and they are back in the dryer again. How many washes before you are really able to use them?