Cut Your Drying Time in Half with DIY Wool Dryer Balls

Putting wool dryer balls into your clothes dryer will cut down on your drying time as well as cut down on static electricity without chemical filled dryer sheets. You can DIY wool dryer balls to save even more money!

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Wool Dryer Balls seem to be the major craze right now in cloth diapering accessories. There are lots of WAHMs that make them and you can even find them on Amazon.

But we started using cloth diapers to save money and stick to a budget, which is why I decided to make my own and these DIY Wool Dryer Balls are super easy for anyone to make!

How to DIY Wool Dryer Balls

[1] Supplies 

Lion Brand Yarn 620-152 Wool-Ease Yarn, Oxford GreyLion Brand Yarn 923-306 Ice Cream Sprinkles Yarn, RainbowDarice Acrylic Crochet Hook with Styles L11, M13, N15 and P16L’eggs Women’s 10 Pair Everyday Reinforced Toe Knee Highs, Off Black, One Size

You will need:

• Wool Yarn (be sure it’s 100% wool)
• Acrylic Yarn
• Scissors
• Crochet needle
• Old Pantyhose/Knee High
• A set of hands that won’t be writing for awhile. Rolling these balls gave me some major hand cramps… You’ve been warned!

I bought two types of wool yarn. The pinkish/red yarn was thicker and the brown yarn was thin, like a regular yarn. They both made two balls, even though the brown was about twice the size. I would definitely use the thicker yarn next time, as it’s easier to roll and doesn’t take as long.

[2] Start rolling your Core: Start by rolling around your fingers. Here’s where I made a deviation from the original…  I chose to use a REGULAR acrylic yarn for the core. Why? 100% wool yarn is price-y! I made 2 dryer balls with an acrylic core and 2 with a wool core. They both have held up and perform the exact same!

[3] Roll your core into a ball.

[4] Finish off your core. I made my cores 6 1/2 in. in circumference. If you are making your core out of acrylic, you will still need to wrap around the acrylic core, with the wool yarn in order for your core to felt, or it will unravel in the washer/dryer. I put a few rounds of wool yarn (just enough to where you couldn’t see the red acrylic shining through).

[5] Tie your balls into the hose for core felting.  This is how to felt the balls.

• After tying them into the hose, put them in the washer with a regular load of laundry. Wash in Hot Water and then dry with Heat.  This speeds up the felting process. It did take them quite a long time to dry, as I suppose the wool holds the water.  The balls still measured 6 1/2 inches.
• Once the core is felted, you need to wrap your balls again to desired size. I wrapped to have about a 9 1/2 inch ball.  Once you are done, repeat the felting process.
• I felted my balls twice, at this point, (repeated the wash & dry twice) just to be sure. I saw no difference from 1 to 2 felts, but I worked so hard that I didn’t want these little guys to unravel! After two feltings (is that even a word?), the balls shrank anywhere from 1/4 – 1/2 inch.

[6] Scenting your Dryer Balls: One of my favorite things about the dryer balls that I already had, was the smell, well, when I first got them. The scent wears off quite fast, so I was very excited to try to re-scent them myself. I purchased a bottle of Orange Essential Oil and a Marinade Injector.

I used 1/4 oz for the 4 balls that I made. I was a bit disappointed that the scent seems to fade over just about a week, but I’ve found that I can dot them with a bit more oil randomly and it works fine.

[7] Let the balls dry overnight: Once you inject them with the essential oils, it’s best to let them dry overnight so that they won’t leak any EO’s on your clothes or your cloth diapers (eek!).

[8] My Dryer Ball Hangout: Here is where it all happens… my 4 dryer balls that I made, hanging with my 4 Buddha Bunz and 1 Bouncing Woolies’ Funktastic  I now have 9 dryer balls. I do believe they cut down on drying time, but I would really like to find a way for them to keep their scent longer… and reduce static just a bit more!

[9] DIY Success! If I can make these myself, you can! They were quite easy, once I got the hang of it, but I do understand that these take time to make and aren’t the cheapest.

I spent about $10 for the yarn for 4 balls, with coupons from Hobby Lobby. If you add in the price of the oils and injector, that’s another $10, but those can be used for more DIY projects!

Tip of the Day: Here’s a quick tip to extend the life of your velcro and keep the tabs from curling so much. When you put them in the wash, attach one to it’s laundry tab, then bring the other over to attach on top.

This works with any diaper that has tabs similar to Bumgenius (Rumparooz, Thirsties, Bummis, etc.).