Maybe you've heard of them. Popularly referred to as dryer balls by those who use them in place of the more conventional dryer sheets to keep down static when drying laundry by machine. Supposedly they also cut down the dryer time of a load of laundry (I have noticed this, so feel that it is an accurate claim.)
Maybe you haven't heard of them. I hadn't, at least not until about a month ago. I had heard of the plastic nubby balls you put in your dryer for the same purpose. Last winter I broke down and bought a package of them (two pack, on clearance.) While I found they did keep the static down pretty good and that I didn't need to use a dryer sheet--or rather, 1/3 of a dryer sheet as I frugally determined a decade and a half ago would do the trick--they didn't last very long. The first one cracked after only about three months of use. I kept it going, though, until it finally blew out and came apart in three pieces. Along about that same time the other one cracked in half approximately 7 months after I'd bought them.
Not very satisfied with this, I went internet searching to see if there was a better way. And I found it. Or, at least, I think I have. Remind me to give you a report next summer and see if my wool dryer balls last longer than the plastic ones did. From what I've read, I'm pretty sure they will.
You can do your own internet searching for "felted wool dryer balls" and come up with lots of sites that tell you how to make them, or give reviews of ones you can buy ready made on places like etsy. Most of the sites I visited recommended a minimum of 4 balls per load, up to 7 or 8 depending on what size load and type of fabrics you are drying.
I chose to make my own, and, being without my own abundance of hand wash only wool yarn (since I'm still a newbie knitter and going for the easy wash stuff in my knitting projects), I trolled the clearance area of my local Walmart's craft section and found a couple large skeins of fisherman's wool--with the requisite "hand wash only" label-- on clearance for $5 each. In the interest of total transparency, I did visit my local Goodwill twice in the two weeks preceding my Walmart purchase, but neither time did Goodwill have any wool yarn, only acrylic, which won't work for this project.
I got almost eight balls out of two skeins of yarn.
Making them was easy. If you've ever wound a ball of yarn before, you've got all the skills it takes. To felt the balls, I stuck them in a pair of pantyhose with runs (frugalistas don't use good pantyhose for this!), tying the hose shut after each ball before inserting the next. Then I tossed the whole lumpy mass into the washer on hot (frugally, with a load of laundry that needed to be washed on hot anyway). After washing, I put the pantyhose/ball mass, and the load of laundry, into the dryer and dried it all. I repeated this twice more before releasing the balls from the pantyhose.
Voila! Dryer Balls!
To store mine when not in use, I employ a cute little basket (which I did find at Goodwill) that sits on top of my dryer.
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