Wild and crazy dryer balls made of felted wool scraps, an old sock and bright jersey fabric

 Dryer balls!!!!!!!!!  I love how these turned out!!  I was less than successful getting wool to felt in hot water and the dryer as so many online tutorials indicate it can be done.  In the end, I did find one place where the lady simply stuff an old sock with other old socks until it was the size and weight she wanted to make her dryer balls SO..... I just decided to make my own version.  I have a bag full of small felted wool scraps which my daughter gifted me so I used them to create a ball wrapping it with yarn as I went to keep all the pieces together.  When it was big enough I stuffed the ball into a piece of old sock and tied off both end using cording woven through the sock and tied off.  I have made a supply of these for my dryer and because they have sock wrappers they are boring brown and black but do the job. 

I decided to gift my daughter a set of six of these dryer balls for Christmas so I decided to give them a make over before wrapping them.  I dug through my fabric stash and found this really stretchy jersey top which was too large for me and I upcycled it into covers for the dryer balls.  I cut a 5" square of the jersey, I fold it in half and stitched up the side using zig zag first and then next to it a line of straight stitching using very short stitches.  You can see the seam on the right hand side of this ball.  I turned it inside out and stuffed a dryer ball into it - amazing how much that jersey stretches!!!  Then I used a large needle and cording to make a line of running stitch on one end about where the fabric meets if you stretch it into place.  Once all they way around I tightened ed only slightly the stitching and then tucked the extra fabric inside and under the edge of the line of running stitch.  As I pulled the ends of the cording tight I kept tucking the inner fabric inside so that once the two ends were as tight as they could be you no longer can see the sock dryer ball.  I tied a square knot and then pulled the ends into the ball to hide them.  I did the same thing on the other end. Dressed up those dryer balls pretty nicely!!!!   

 I wrapped them in one of the Bento Bags I made earlier this year and they fill it perfectly!!!

It will be a happy little surprise for her for Christmas!!!         Therese