Wool Dryer Ball DIY

I just shared why we ditched Dryer Balls and this post is the DIY counterpart promised from that post. If you missed the post, you can read it here. 

Purchasing wool dryer balls takes the work out of creating your dryer balls is thavailable on Amazon for a reasonable price. However, if you have a stash of wool to use up or just want a DIY project – this post is for you. If you are headed to get your wool, take advantage of your local store’s coupons. Michaels has a 40% off one item coupon regularly online. 

One standard spool of wool will make you two dryer balls that fit the size of your palm. If you are looking to make dryer balls a little bit larger, I recommend picking up two wool spools to make three orange sized balls. 

Creating Your Dryer Balls

To start your dryer balls, create a knot and start wrapping it around in an X pattern all the way around making it a circular pattern and eventually a ball. Wrap the wool yarn until you are are happy with the size. 

Once your wool balls are made, it’s now time to felt them. For felting you are going to need – a washer that runs on a hot cycle (or a boiling pot of water), a dryer, and nylon pantyhose. 

To felt the Wool Balls.

Place each wrapped wool ball in the pantyhose one by one and tie a knot, either in the pantyhose or by placing a string and tying it off between each ball. 

Run your dryer balls on hot in your washing machine and then dry completely in the dryer. Do this three times and your balls will be felted.

If you are like me, you might not want to run your wool balls through the hot cycle in the washing machine three times unless you are doing that many hot loads of laundry. I did two cycles of boiling them on a pot in the stove for 20 minutes then dried in the dryer and one load in the washing machine with a set of laundry I was washing on hot. 

You will see the change in the dryer ball texture once they are felted. The balls will be a smoother texture instead of each ball having palpable lines.

These balls will last through thousands of washes and you can control what is going on your clothes! Ditching the toxins was a big thing for us. I like to add Lavender EO or Joy EO to our dryer balls. Purification is another great oil to add too. 

Love the idea of dryer balls but don’t love the idea of making your own? These dryer balls on Amazon are a great option!