Dryer Balls

I have been desperately trying to get back into sewing.  There are a few reasons for this...

•  I truly do enjoy sewing, it is satisfying to finish projects relatively quickly, especially compared to knitting sometimes
• I have a bunch of great supplies I should be using, but of course, I never seem to have what I need!
• I have a bunch of project lined up for the nursery, the baby, nursing, etc.  All of these are items that are sold for much more than I can make them
• I am in the process of creating a great new sewing / craft studio.  My husband will be annoyed if I never ever use it!

Throughout my pregnancy, I have found sewing a little exhausting.  I have more energy these days, but it still tires me out to stand for a while ironing and cutting, and then to put it all together to sew.  I keep trying, but I'm not always very successful. It is much easier to curl up on the couch and knit, of course!

A few weeks ago I did finish up some dryer balls.  These had been on my list of things to do for a while.  We don't use fabric softener, but we do use dryer sheets.  I'm hoping that now we can stop.

The pattern I used is from the purl bee fabric beach balls pattern.  The pattern ended up being much to big (even the smallest ball), so I halfed it for the two of the balls I did. The balls are filled with wool sweater scraps and some wool yarn as well.  The biggest makes a huge racket while in the dryer, it'll just become a toy I guess, but the other two are in constant rotation through the dryer.

You definitely don't have to use cute colours for this project, but I really wanted to enjoy using these.  Fun and bright colours make me smile.  I'm just like that.

Once I sat down to sew these, they went pretty quickly.  There is a small amount of hand sewing for the final seam, but since these are pretty utilitarian items, the seam doesn't have to be too pretty.  This was a great way to use up some smaller scraps you might have kicking around from other projects.