Modifications Important Notes
Chart has an extra stitch on the end of the repeat.

• Ignored last st (left-most) of chart repeat.
• CO 12 sts.
• M1r increase at the beginning of each repeat in increase rnds
• M1l increase at the end of each repeat in increase rnds.

October 20, 2020 When I went add this one to my projects, I was a little surprised that I seem to be the first person on Ravelry to make this little bauble. It’s so pretty and cute! It uses three colours, yes, but no more than two per row. Now that I’m a ways into it, I get it. This bauble is not for the faint of heart knitter.

Bit tricky starting this one. The pattern instructions are extremely limited and vague, so it’s a good thing I have experience with making little balls like this and I definitely wouldn’t recommend this to anyone making their first knitted ball. For one thing, it appears from the chart that you’re supposed to start with a mere 6 stitches in the first round, then TRIPLE it by the second. What’s more, the pattern instructions don’t say what kind of increase to use, nor where to make said increases. I think part of that might be a cultural difference (the pattern is originally in Spanish), but it’s still frustrating and it lead to a couple false starts.

In any case, I settled on M1r and M1l increases at the beginning and end of each repeat, respectively. It’s working out okay, though if I ever do this again, I’ll probably do either the increase from Arne & Carlos’s Julekuler / 55 Christmas Balls to Knit, or work the M1s one stitch from each end.

I got a ways into it and was feeling a little better about my latest project when I realized that there was a discrepancy between the pictured project and the chart that turns out is kind of a major mistake: the chart has an extra stitch on the end of the repeat..

Thankfully, I wasn’t that far into it but if I had been, I would have been pretty upset about having to re-start it. This meant, though, that I only needed to increase to 12 stitches after the first round, so instead, I just cast on 12 and worked it like that until the next increasing round.

Despite a few false starts and the fact that this pattern uses three colours (though only 2 max each round), it’s still working up surprisingly quick.

October 20/21, 2020 (Later the same night) OMG I SKIPPED A ROW!!!! Here I felt like I’ve been making such quick progress on this one, and at tonight’s SnB, I wasn’t paying enough attention and missed an entire row of the first zig-zags in green. I had to rip back 9 rounds, nearly all my progress from today. I was nearly up to the decrease rounds! And this is AFTER I realized I missed an increase yesterday and had to go back a few rounds to add that one. What a shame.

Ah well. This time it was my own mistake and I’m glad I caught it. I want to say that I’m fairly confident that I can work back up to the same round fairly quickly, but maybe this is a lesson in humility? Or that I should pay more attention to my work while I’m at/on my SnB meetings? All that work tonight and most of it had to be ripped out. I think I only have about 2 rounds of work to show from last night to tonight. So disheartening. Maybe I’ll work on weaving in some of these ends before working on any more knitting. Yes, that seems safe…