About Dryer Balls
I seem to have come a little bit late to the Dryer Ball party. The idea is that you throw them in the dryer and they help your clothes get dry an fluffy faster. Some people use tennis balls. Some people buy plastic dryer balls from Amazon. Heather Ordover knits them.
Dryer Balls from Roving
I felted these up using some perfectly good (if slightly odd colored) roving I got at the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival three years ago. I’d bought it to experiment with kool-aid dying and drop spinning, then, last year at the festival, I bought a bunch of fiber.
2 oz of undyed Jacob/Alpaca fiber
Every so often I would take out the drop spindle, but I wasn’t about to start with the new fiber until I’d used of the old, and that was going to take forever, and my dryer also seems to take forever.
Not much too it, really. I wound a ‘core’ of roving, tied it on a sock and tossed it in the washer with some white towels, ran it through the dryer with them, took out a little, semi-hard roving ball, wound more roving around it, repeated… Voila! home made dryer balls. Not very exciting, but they do seem to work (who knew?) One of the came out of the sock and I got a strip of felted roving. I store it in the catnip jar and give it to the furry beasts every now and then because everything is a cat toy.
Speaking of the Sheep and Wool Festival
This years Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is scheduled for May 5 & 6. I always get excited about it come March, because that’s when they open registration for classes. Sort of. They tend to sell out, so they actually have a ‘lottery system’ drawing for class space held on the 28th. This year I’ve signed up for a class on japanese knit stitches, one on sweater detailing, and a mini-class on needle felting. I’m hoping I’ll get into one of the three, but you never know…
I’ve given up on trying to drag the family along, except for my older sister, who has moved back to town and is as fiber obsessed as I am, or more. Will also be joined by RRR, a knitting friend, who will not only tour the yarn barns with me, she’s also signing up for the Japanese stitchery class. Here’s hoping.
Blog Contests and Yarn Giveaways
Following up on the Red Heart Yarn of the Month giveaway I mentioned last post, the drawing date on that one is April 6. Knit and Seek is holding a drawing for a skein of Tosh Merino Light (March 10 deadline). I also entered the iMake drawing for the Toft Pattern Book (Closes the end of March)
