yarn balls won't felt

[mysticmomma]

I'm making wool dryer balls. I wound my ball, put it in the panty hose and threw it in the washer/dryer, and they are not felting. I washed on hot, and the yarn was 100% wool...

what am I missing?

[54mama]

Could it be a superwash 100% wool... washable wool? If not, I'd run them through again with the hottest water you can get, soap and some jeans to increase agitation. Good luck?

[DeerMother]

I think I had to run the washer at least 4 times for the dryer balls. My washer is 2-4 times for knitted stuff. Sometimes I add a stock pot of boiling water to the washer too. Now that I have wool dryer balls I add them when felting something knitted. Since you don't have those yet, ONE tennis ball in the washer will speed up the process.

[lnupermom]

Sometimes it takes 5 0r 6 cycles to get something to felt. Are you sure it's not superwash wool? It also sometimes depends on the color of the wool. Many whites and pastels are bleached and that messing up the felting ability.

[Peace+Hope]

i'm about to try this and worried my front loader washer might not have enough water to work well.

CAN you just boil the balls as effectively?

[MamaWolfe]

front loaders are very gentle, it takes mine 5-6 washes, maybe even more, to felt! I would just run them with your laundry for a week or so. Eventually... And if for some reason they never seem to felt (superwash maybe?), then you can just wrap the outside with feltable wool and you'll have a great ball still.

[earthmama369]

Originally Posted by Peace+Hope

i'm about to try this and worried my front loader washer might not have enough water to work well.

CAN you just boil the balls as effectively?

It's not just the heat, it's the agitation. When you wet felt by hand, it takes a fair amount of rubbing the wool to get it to felt. Just boiling it would achieve the shrink, but not the felting.

OP, are you using a top loader or a front loader? Is there anything else in the wash with the yarn balls to help felt them? I would just toss them in, still in the pantyhose, everytime you wash a load on hot until they're felted -- it'll probably take 4-8 loads, depending on how hot your water is, the kind of wool, what else you have in there, type of washer, etc. Front loaders take way longer than top loaders.

[Baby Makes 4]

Are you positive it's wool? You can always take a small piece outside and light it on fire. If it melts it's acrylic. I have a few yarns in my stash that have lost their ballbands and haven't been what I expected them to be.

[Pepper44]

I'm interested in making wool dryer balls too. It's good to know you have to wash them multiple times in order to felt them. I could see myself posting the same thing and worrying! I also didn't know to watch out for washable wool.

The tutorial I read said to make a small inner ball and felt it, then wind more wool yarn around that and felt again.

[Peace+Hope]

Originally Posted by Pepper44

The tutorial I read said to make a small inner ball and felt it, then wind more wool yarn around that and felt again.

i saw that too. i thought it was just cosmetic, since it didn't say otherwise. do you think it's an important part of the felting process?