How to Wet Felt Dryer Balls

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Dryer balls are a great, all-natural addition to your laundry routine. Here’s how to wet felt dryer balls.

What are Dryer Balls Used For?

Dryer balls are put in with your damp laundry into the dryer. Not only does it keep your laundry from clumping up and therefore not drying evenly, but they also “create space” in between the laundry, thereby increasing the efficiency of your dryer. Your laundry should be dry sooner. They also help reduce static cling.

Finally, if you add essential oils to your dryer balls, they will also help your laundry smell fresh and clean – no need for those dryer sheets which have chemicals in them. This is all-natural!

A few years ago I had a post on how to make your own dryer balls. For that project, I used wool roving yarn to felt them. I have since found that after a couple of years, they have become “unfelted”. I needed to re-felt the exterior so I thought I would try wet felting.

What is Wet Felting?

Wet felting is a felting method that involves hot water, soap, wool and your hands. Previously with the dryer balls, I ran them through the laundry on a hot cycle. Wet felting mimics the process.

The combination of the heat in the water with the friction of your hands causes the wool to felt. To make the process easier, I used wool roving for this project.

Wool Roving

Wool roving does not look like yarn at all. If anything, it looks like batting – but it’s not batting. The roving I got from Michaels looked like a fluffy sheet of fibres. It was loosely folded and rolled.

If starting from scratch, I would follow my other post on making dryer balls in which I simply wound 100% pure wool yarn into a ball. I would use the wet felting method to finish it off.

Wet Felting Supplies

This is a very easy process that doesn’t really require anything other than wool roving.

• wool roving – I got mine from Michaels but I’m sure there are lots of other places as well. It also comes in a variety of colours. I just stuck with the simple white.
• hot tap water
• liquid dish detergent – free from scents and dyes is best; I use Castille soap.
• mixing bowl
• dryer balls ready to be felted

How to Wet Felt Dryer Balls

I use Castille soap which is concentrated and so I just added a squirt or two into about 6 cups of hot water. Here is the step-by-step process to wet felt dryer balls.

Gently unroll your wool roving. You may wish to thin it out – you don’t want thick clumps as it will be hard to felt. I wanted enough to wrap around the dryer balls a couple of times so that it would have a good coating. I just gently pulled the roving off from the main roll – you don’t need to use scissors.

Then I loosely wrapped the roving around the dryer ball, ensuring that it was covered all over.

Dunk your dryer ball into the hot soapy water and start working the ball. It will start out looking like a big mess!. Gently roll the dryer ball around in your hands, without squeezing. Think of trying to form the perfect snowball – but you don’t want to pack it. Keep forming it in your hands.

As soon as it cools, dunk it back into the hot soapy water. You’ll do this several times over the span of a few minutes. You will constantly roll it and work in your hands without squeezing.

After a few minutes, the roving will smooth out and become and start to felt. It will still be a bit squishy – there will be a bit of give to it still. That is fine.

It is important that your soapy water is hot. If you are doing a lot, or if it’s taking a bit, be sure to change out the water so that it’s always hot.

Some of my dryer balls had felting bits of wool that stuck together in a clump but did not stick to the dryer ball itself. I remember this issue when I felted them originally in the washing machine. I trimmed those bits off with scissors – cut close to the dryer ball and worked those ends into the dryer ball. If you have bits that “stick out”, they’ll just dry like that. You want your dryer ball to be as smooth as possible.

Rinse it under cool water to remove most of the bubbles. Keep shaping it.

Leave the dryer balls to dry. Depending on the size, they may need to dry overnight.

Once they are dry the dryer balls are ready to use! You will notice how nicely felted they are.

How to Use Your Wet Felt Dryer Balls

Depending on the size of your laundry load, you may wish to use at least 2-3 dryer balls. I do large loads and use 5 or 6 at a time.

I like to add a few drops of essential oils to each of the dryer balls. My current favourite scent is Purify by doTerra. It makes my laundry smell so nice and clean.

When not in use, you can simply keep the dryer balls in your dryer until it’s time for the next load.

Want to remember hot to wet felt dryer balls? Be sure to save this to your favourite Pinterest page.