’BowBells’. Aka Baubles. Christmas Baubles. BowBells because one of us lives in Bow, and the Bow bells are famous.

These are just a bit of fun, designed to use up leftover yarn, you know, those odd balls hanging around after a sweater or the odd few metres that you just can’t throw away after a project because they might be useful someday. Surely everyone has those?

We loved Arne and Carlos’ Christmas Balls (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/julekuler), but in 4-ply and on teeny dpns they were just too fiddly for us. Behold, a quicker, less fiddly method, even if it does have a seam. They are really quick to knit, we can manage one in around an hour and a half, even when multi-tasking with a glass of wine or the tv.

DK yarn. We used a mix of leftovers, John Arbon Knit By Numbers, a bit of Rowan Wool Cotton and some KnitPicks Telemark that was lurking.

All of our baubles weighed between 15 & 20g, so if you allow around 39m(42yds) of yarn per bauble you should have plenty. There are 8 different versions, a cabled one, a bramble stitch one that has two different looks to it depending on when you change colour, a ribby one, a bobbly one that someone (cough - Belinda - cough) thinks looks a bit like a Sputnik (showing her age), and then three ‘colourwork’ versions, an Argyle, a heart design and more of a geometric Fairisle-y design. They’re all in the pictures.

We used polystyrene balls to wrap our knitting around as stuffing just seemed too much like hard work, but stuff them by all means if that appeals to you. Excellent ball delivery service came from here: http://www.craftmill.co.uk/polystyrene-plastic-balls/soli...

Other than that, if you want to crochet a chain for hanging them up you’ll need a crochet hook and you’ll need a tapestry needle for sewing the seam and threading the yarn through the stitches to draw up the top and bottom.