I know I promised to do a video of me making dryer balls, but when I get hella busy, I don’t do much blogging or video recording. I wrote a post which was pretty much a brief tutorial on how I make my dryer balls (https://mrsdsfiberodyssey.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/this-is-how-my-dryer-balls-are-made/). So, after several months of being super busy and finally moving into a nice studio space, I am now, finally making good on my promise.
My new studio space has made a huge difference for me in production! The laminate flooring makes it super easy to clean up after and God knows I can be very messy at times. It has tons of natural light, which I crave and need in order to create beautiful woolly and fibery things.
When you’ve finished watching the vid, you can scroll down and take a peek at all the fibery things I’ve been creating!
Green Bay Packers dryer balls
Bright colored dryer balls
Green Bay Packers dryer balls
the coat tree I turned into a yarn tree for display
close-up of the coat tree I turned into a yarn tree
I have a love-hate relationship with rainy days. I know they’re necessary so that everything has water without us paying for it, but I dislike them when they’re cold and dreary. When they’re dreary, I need things to pull me out of any funk they can sometimes throw me into. When they’re dreary, I crave COLOR!! Lots of bright and bold COLORS!!
I started my work today by finishing these dryer balls in my natural colored wool offering.
While they’re pretty, they just weren’t pretty on a rainy day. These got me going on the dyepot with some wonderful Blue Faced Leicester roving and some Jacquard #735 Kelly Green. A most definite improvement and a needed staple for making dryer balls!
More color improvement came with the blocking of my latest square I knit up, with some merino that I experimented on, from TinCanKnits pattern called Vivid. The colors are canary yellow and sienna. I think I should most definitely experiment some more! Right now, I’m knitting 3 squares of each color from my own hand spun, hand dyed yarn.
To top off the adding of COLOR into today’s dreariness, I received a package from my good friend, Jeff Mueller (aka Computer Art Man). He sent this beautiful metal print because I mentioned something in a tweet to him (follow him @computerartman on twitter) about a week ago!
Jeff is my favorite digital artist because his work is absolutely amazing!! I now own two pieces of his fabulous artwork. The other piece I own, I bought a few years ago and it’s a gorgeous canvas piece of Marlena Dietrich from a still scene from “Shanghai Express”!!
A lot of people have brought it to my attention that my dryer balls are ‘too bouncy’ to be 100% wool. If you were to say this to me in person, I’d invite you to cut one in half and see for yourself. I would also consider it to be a waste of the hard work I put into my dryer balls. The halved ball, on the other hand, I would be able to recycle into new dryer balls.
I don’t like to share my process or the processes my art / craft goes through to get from point A to point B. It’s necessary for a dryer ball to have some bounce in it to bounce its way around the clothes dryer. It’s this bouncing action that is what actually softens the clothes as they’re being propelled around the inside of the clothes dryer.
I start out with about an ounce of clean wool and wool scraps. I prefer to work with loose, washed wool because it’s easier to compress by hand than a carded batt of wool.
I compress or squeeze the wool tightly in my hand until it’s firm enough to start a binding yarn. The binding yarn will aid in holding the wool together as you wrap the yarn around it while squeezing the ball tighter.
I keep adding more wool until the ball is almost 2.25 inches (regular sized dryer ball) to 3 inches in diameter (large sized dryer ball). I begin by pushing the needle felting tool into the wool ball and keep doing this while rotating the ball around and around. I continue to needle felt it into a nice, firm, round ball until it meets my expectations for bounce and…..
VOILA!! A dryer ball ready to be dressed up (covered with dyed wool, silk and/or decorative wool)!
I’ve not bought any dryer sheets or fabric softeners for the past 4 years. Considering that I used to go through a box of 120 count dryer sheets every 3 months, I’d say that I’ve saved roughly $55 over the past 4 years (more $$$ now, since 14 years have passed) and that’s not bad for a small family.
On a side note: dryer balls are strictly fabric softeners. They do nothing to remove static electricity and they’re unscented. Most people find adding a few drops of clear, scented essential oils beneficial for adding a pleasant scent to their laundry. Only a dehumidifier can do that properly, unless you live where there’s high humidity.
Save some money and buy a set of dryer balls for your dryer today at my Etsy shop!!
Here are some photos of recent dryer balls:
3 finished hot pink dryerballsdryerballs in processdryerballs for sale on Etsydryerballs for sale on Etsydryerballs for sale on Etsydryerballs for sale on Etsydryerballs for sale on Etsydryerballs for sale on EtsyHandmade dryer balls made in January/February 2026
While I’m not really into painting with wool, I do make custom design dryer balls for those who ask. I shipped out an order for custom designed dryer balls this past Wednesday. I love how they turned out. There are 4 to 5 hearts on each ball.
I enjoy making them and I never want to ship any of them because I love how they all look. I think a decorator bowl, full of dryer balls, would look really awesome on your coffee table. I would put a bowl full on mine, but I don’t have one.
I’m a fiber artist. I love everything there is to love about wool, silk, cotton, shiengora, llama, camel hair, alpaca, etc. I love washing and carding it, but I especially love spinning it and weaving with the resulting yarn! Lately, … Continue reading →
The Fiber Odyssey 