It’s opening week for Major League Baseball teams across the USA! While I’m not the biggest MLB fan on the planet, I have some loved ones who are. They also happen to be people who do their own laundry. So, naturally, I make the assumption that their lives will be more complete with dryer balls that celebrate America’s pastime.
I’ve made dryer balls (for more eco-friendly laundry) before- it was my first time and they were a bit of an experiment. I wanted to make a set that looked like just like baseballs and as it turns out, it is incredibly easy to do. If you didn’t see my first post on making dryer balls for more efficient laundry, hop on over to that post in case step one (below) isn’t crystal clear.
Materials needed:
White wool roving
Red wool yarn
Old panty hose
Scissors
Needle felting needle
Washing machine, dryer and liquid detergent
I wet felted two similar sized wool balls by stuffing fistfuls of fluffy wool roving into one leg of an old pair of tights, knotting the panty hose above each wool ball, then washing and drying them with a load of white laundry using the hottest setting for washing and drying. When I pulled the tights out of the dryer, I cut the felted, and compacted white balls out of the panty hose. (Again, see my previous post if this sounds like too much to imagine)
I grabbed a second handful of white wool roving and tacked it down around the core ball using my needle felting needle. Then, I cut a length of red wool yarn and wrapped it around the fluffy outer wool ball so that it looked like the seam of a baseball. I tacked that down with my felting needle as well. I repeated this process with my second, felted wool ball, so that I had two puffy woolen baseballs. I took the wool balls and knotted them inside the second leg of my old panty hose, and washed and dried them in my machine.
After cutting the newly felted baseballs out of the old hose, I noticed that my red seams looked a little (a lot) wonky.
I used my felting needle to stab the red, wool yarn into straighter, more even lines and presto! a set of dryer balls that move the laundry around the dryer for a more efficient, less linty, never-static-y load of laundry. Home run!!
I really enjoyed reading and picking up some of your ideas. I’m moving my craft room to a different part of our home for more space. I must have one or more of everything Michaels carries or carried. Now to put all the ideas into play. Thanks.