I saw a post on a friend's FB page for "Yarn Balls". They are just what the name implies--balls of yarn that you put into your dryer along with wet clothes, and they work to soften the clothes, eliminating the need for chemical fabric softeners and dryer sheets. They are made with 100% wool yarn, and felted in the washing machine, so that the fibers bond themselves to each other, and they work crazy good. There are any variety of videos showing how to do this, and since I have bags of yarn in my closet that will never be used for anything else, I decide I want some of these babies. Wind the yarn, put it into old pantyhose, tie it off, and wash in hot water in the washer, then dry. Cut away the nylon, and voila! Yeah, right.
The first batch of six, I put into the pantyhose, and tied them off like beads on a necklace. Dropped them into the washer, and when I came back, the nylon had torn apart on several of them, and the yarn had wrapped around and around the washer's agitator, so that I had to get a scissor and cut away the huge tangle. Several of them survived. Luckily, I have a lot of yarn. Not so many pantyhose, however, especially in the winter, when I live in knee socks and boots...
Second attempt. I had some odd cone yarn, already in balls, and so I used that as a base, and wound some yarn around them that I knew would felt well. I raided my stash of pantyhose, and found some knee-highs that had dead elastic tops, and this time, tied the balls using cotton string, and cut them apart, so they were individuals in the washer. Learning curve step one. When the wash cycle is done, some of the strings have worked their way off the nylon, the felting yarn has come off the cone yarn, and massed itself to itself--another big mess--nothing salvaged this time, except the cone yarn balls, which have not felted, or oddly, come unwound.
Third attempt. I used some brain cells thinking up a feasible substitute for the pantyhose, since I had exhausted my supply. In my attic is a roll of white nylon that must have been meant for sheer curtains, folded double so that it is more than 120" wide. I cut about 10" and stitched it into a tube. This time, I put each ball into it's own separate covering, knotted each end, and into the hot water they go. Another step up on the learning curve: I do not ignore them. After about 5 minutes, I check back, and find that as the yarn compresses, the covers are not shrinking along with them, the way pantyhose would have done, and some of them are beginning to unravel inside. I pull them out, rewind the ones that are coming apart, and reknot to take up the slack in the coverings. After that, things go better, and I now have a collection of yarn balls, which I intend to pass along to people who will give them a try.
I have been using the first ones that I made for a couple of weeks now, and they really do seem to soften up the clothes, and there isn't any static cling. I put three into the dryer with a load of laundry, and who knows why they work? I had purchased some plastic ones a while back, and they were useless, not to mention very noisy. So--I used up one bag of yarn, and no longer have to purchase dryer sheets. A win/win! And, I learned a lot...
