Effective, Anti-Bacterial Strong, Cheap & Beautiful Dryer Balls That Are Easy and Quick To Make

Handmade wet-felted balls made from Pure Wool Merino fibre with a core made from recycled scraps of wool knit. I made all six balls in one weekend.
Music: Dan Lebowitz
What You Need:
Pieces of wool Knit from old clothing
Strong thread and a suitably long needle- I like a curved one as it can go through multiple layers
Wool top or clean carded wool.
Gloves
Hot water -blood temperature and a container big enough to soak the ball
A towel and bubble wrap or similar textured surface
Olive oil soap but any hand soap will do
In this video I make an inner base ball out of wool knit scraps. As well as being economic and using left over knit from other projects, the benefit of using the scraps of knit is that I can make it tight as I can keep pulling the knit and stretching it.
I use wool top, sliver, or roving. This is wool that’s been very processed, and all the fibres are lying in the same direction. You could also use raw fleece or washed fleece, but it would need to be carded. Using the wool top is more time efficient.
I also want you to get a really good idea of the increasing amount of pressure and energy that I use and how it changes along the process. You will be able to see the wool shrinking and felting into a smooth ball from a big bundle of fluff.
The wool fibre has scales that lock into other wool fibres. This tendency is what makes wool felt, along with agitation, hot water and very cold water can work too. Using a little soap helps too. Because the wool fibre has scales, it locks into other wool and will even felt through other fabric like other wool material thin cotton and silk.
Notice that I start doing this in a super gentle way. That’s very deliberate. When felting you start very slowly and gently.
Keep adding to it until it’s about the right size. When felting, we are looking at about a 30% shrink rate and the ball will also be a bit smaller just from drying out.
I’m starting this on the towel because the towel surface texture is useful to gently start the felting process.
If you rush this part of the process the wool on the outside will be starting to be felt but won’t be felted underneath.
Normally I would put the large, wrapped bundle in a stocking for felting. The stocking helps a lot to keep the wool in place. I’m not doing that in this video because I want you to be able to see how the felt is created.
Hot water and agitation create felt. We all know that if we ever accidentally put a pure wool sweater into the washing machine and then put it on a hot cycle, it would felt every time. Next, I get just a little bit more tough with the pressure I’m putting on the felt. With pre-felting a skin sort of starts to form but if you squished the ball, you could still feel the fibres moving underneath as they are still not felted.
In order to progress the felting, I use olive oil soap which I believe has a pH level that makes it very useful for felting wool or, detergent just a little bit not too much.
This ball is quite heavy when wet. To get completely dry without putting it in a dryer will take a few days. Wool is antibacterial so it isn’t going to get mouldy ever.
The dropping action you can see towards the end can be quite magical. We don’t do that at the beginning though. It’s fun to do at the end of a project once the wool starts to be felt.
I’ve made these balls in white because they are a gift for a special person. This is also part of my new collection of ideas for Christmas gifts that can be made in a short time but are also valuable gifts that people can use every day… that is my requirement for a great gift.
Making these balls is a fantastic hand exercise for me. This work strengthens your hands. The balls are very light to hold so they’re great for elderly people and great for little children who are learning to catch a ball. It’s much easier to catch something like this that is soft. These balls are not going do much damage if they hit something as they really are light.

[@maisygirl07]

a felting tool might help :)

[@TheWeekendArtist]

Yes, It certainly could.