A wise person once said, “It is never too early to start making decorations and gifts for the holidays!” So, here it goes:

Snowballicious – a knitted snowball ornament made up of little snowflakes that are joined together to form a beautiful hanging ornament. Place a string of small LED battery powered lights inside and you have a magical accent light for your coffee table or shelf.

Enjoy and Have a Snowballicious Holiday season!

October 2018 Update: I added a new version of the Snowballicious pdf. The updated version has more information about using Elmer’s glue as stiffener.

Also, if you intend to use the ornament as an accent light you may prefer to make your ornament with the bottom snowflake with a large enough opening for a small battery powered faux candle. A larger opening will also make it easier to place a string light inside the ornament. There is now a Faux Candle Option pdf available with instructions explaining how to make the bottom snowflake with the wide opening.

Two sizes are available: Large (made up of 12 motifs) and Small (made up of 7 motifs). With recommended yarn and needles your large ornament will turn out anywhere between 5” to 7” in diameter and your small ornament will be about 4”. The actual size of your ornament will also depend on your individual knitting tension.

Yarn and Needles: Crochet thread is the best choice for this project. The sample ornaments were knit with Aunt Lydia’s Classic Crochet thread (size 10) and a set of 4 DPNs in size US 00 (1.75 mm). Circular needles can be used instead of DPNs for the Magic Loop method.

Other materials:
• Crochet hook similar in size to knitting needles
• Scrap yarn (to put unused stitches on)
• Tapestry needle (to weave in ends)
• 9” (22 cm) round balloon
• Stiffener (Epsom salt or Elmer’s clear glue)
•A string of small LED battery powered lights (optional)

Difficulty Level: Experienced. Please, be advised that you will be working with thin yarn and tiny needles. The knitting starts off with just a few stitches joined to be knit in the round which might be quite finicky.

Skills required: k2tog, yo, kfb, slip one stitch over 2 stitches, multiple yarn overs, ktbl, bind off, 3-needle bind off, grafting.

I’m very thankful to ekatja and knit3hearts from KALMYO group for hosting the test and to my wonderful testers: bgow and Knitaway1111.

A special thank you to my dear friend, Kathy (kolorplay), for her help and advice!

A big thank you to Yulia (Juli-ya) for the help with the Russian version of the pattern!

RUSSIAN

Шарик-фонарик – украшение, связанное из снежинок, которые соединены в форму шара. Если поместить внутрь шара небольшую светодиодную (led) гирлянду, шарик превратится в фонарик, который украсит ваш дом и создаст праздничное настроение.

Вам потребуется:

• Пряжа - 100% мерсеризированный хлопок (№10)
• Набор из 4 чулочных спиц - 1.75мм или круговые спицы для метода Волшебной Петли
• Спицы на 1 или 2 размера толще для закрытия петель
• Крючок, соответствующий размеру спиц
• Небольшие остатки любой пряжи (чтобы поместить неиспользуемые петли)
• Игла (для закрепления концов)
• Надувной шарик размером около 22 см
• Сульфат магнезии или белый клей ПВА (для накрахмаливания)
• Небольшая светодиодная (LED) гирлянда (по желанию)