Wool Dryer Balls

Here's a nifty little trick if you're tired of using fabric dryer sheets or fabric softener in your laundry, or you're worried about the toxic chemicals in dryer sheets, or you've actually had a physical reaction to the dryer sheets (My doctor tells me certain brands of dryer sheets are known to cause vaginal irritation)...

Wool, handmade dryer balls!

They're so simple to make, they do a great job of fluffing your clothes in the dryer, and they last almost forever.

All you do is purchase 100% wool yarn. I like Paton's Classic Wool for felting projects, and these dryer balls will be felted. Paton's Classic Wool is sold at Michael's, AC Moore, and other big-box craft stores. I also like Fisherman's Wool, also sold at these stores. (I seldom go to craft stores without first going to their websites and printing out a 40% off coupon, so theoretically you could make a set of these wool balls for under $5 or so.)

Wind the yarn tightly into balls about the size of a baseball. Use a needle to work the loose end into the center of the ball so the ball doesn't ravel.

Make 5-6 balls, secure them tightly in an old nylon stocking, and throw them into your washer with a pair of jeans or some blouses or something-anything to increase the amount of agitation in the tub. (If you toss them into the washer without securing them, separated from one another, in a nylon, you'll find a huge mess of tangled yarn in the washer when the wash cycle ends. It'll be nicely felted, I'm sure, but it will be useless.)

Put them through a full wash cycle, then put them through a dryer cycle.

The balls should be nicely felted by now. In other words, the strands of yarn are bound together and the balls cannot come undone. Remove the nylon stocking by cutting the sections of it apart, thus releasing the balls.

Now, each time I use my clothes dryer, I listen to the wool balls happily bouncing about and fluffing the clothes.

According to others who have made wool dryer balls, these balls cut down on drying time by as much as 40%. I haven't had a good chance to test this claim yet because I'm from the use-the-clothesline-outdoors-in-good-weather school of thought. I have, however, put line-dried clothes into the dryer, with the balls, to fluff them before putting them away.

If you'd like to scare yourself silly regarding the toxicity of fabric softener and dryer sheets, read this or this or simply google "fabric dryer sheets" and you'll find many other links that will do the trick.

If you'd like better instructions on making the wool dryer balls, go here or here  or simply google "wool dryer balls."

No, you don't need to know how to knit or crochets to make wool dryer balls. You simply need to know how to wind a string into a ball.

Try them. I think you'll like 'em.