Ball Patterns Used: (in the order I made them in)
#17 Selbu
#8 Dovre
#21 Pinecone
#15 X’s and O’s Version 2
#7 Mitten
My Own Cabled Ball
#12 Handcraft Border
#0 Basic Pattern
#41 Crown and Heart
#1 Snow Crystal
Frozen Snowflake Version I
Frozen Snowflake Version II

November 7, 2014 Once again making Christmas Balls for the upcoming holiday season. For some, I’m using the same crochet patterns from last year, but I thought I’d diversify a little this year. I checked out 55 Christmas Balls to Knit from the library. I absolutely LOVE this book. The knitted Christmas balls take quite a bit longer to complete and so far I’ve only finished two, but I’m learning a lot.

The first was the increase Arne & Carlos suggested. I didn’t find the instructions in the book to be clear enough so I experimented a little before checking other peoples’ notes and comments on Ravelry. The most helpful came from Shinetastic’s project, A Bushel of Julekuler, who has a link directing the reader to TECHknitting's Very Nearly Invisible Increase page. I continued to check out what others had to say, but the TECHknitting site really provided the best instruction for me.

In addition, I’m working on DPNs and doing fairisle/stranded work for the first time! Working on the DPNs isn’t too bad. The most difficult part is getting started, because it’s easy to get the needles twisted, but I found that once I got started, it got much easier.

The stranding work isn’t bad either, but I feel I definitely need more practice with it. I don’t know if I’m leaving long enough “floats” or if I’m twisting the yarns properly or if I’m knitting too tight (I probably am) or too loose, or if there’s still something wrong with the way I’m doing my increases. In any case, the fabric tends to get bunched up or bumpy in certain places and I haven’t quite figured how to avoid that. It’s a good thing that my first attempt at the technique is a simple ball because the stuffing helps - once I stuff it enough, the bumps and such even out.

For now, I’m working through some green and teal yarn I’ve had for ages (the same stuff I used to make my wildly successful Sunrise Sunset Baby Blanket and the ultimately doomed It’s a Jungle In There). I chose patterns from the book that a little more graphic/geometric because I felt they were friendlier to the two colours (as opposed to the patterns that I’d like to make in other other colours, say, red an white, red and green, or even white and brown for some of the deer/reindeer patterns and purple and white for the hearts). I think next is going to be the pinecone.

November 11, 2014 Finished two more. I think they’re going a little faster, or at least coming a little easier to me. I could still stand to loosen up. I’m really happy with the stranding for my latest ball, Christmas Ball #15: X’s and O’s Version 2, but I still need to work on my tension on the increasing rounds.

November 21, 2014 Tried making my own in with four-stitch cables in just one color. I really don’t like the way it came out. I think the stranding helps these things retain their shape, because this one came out really lumpy and even when I try to adjust it, it never seems to come out spherical. Not to mention I think the cables are too small and don’t show up too well, while at the same time causing the stitches towards the top to pull too much, thus letting too much stuffing show through. Maybe I should have done six-stitch cables, but I’m not sure that would have made it better. I think I saw some actual patterns for cabled Christmas Balls that I would hope would have these issues worked out, but I don’t know that I’ll be trying it anytime soon.

November 22, 2014 Used the size 1 (2.25 mm) needles to make a small ball with the Bernat Handicrafter. No picture pattern/stranding on this one, just wanted to see how this variegated/ombre thread would work up. I liked the way it striped up at the increasing and decreasing rounds, but there’s something about the pooling in the middle that I don’t love. Plus, the way the increases and decreases worked with the stripes, the two ends look remarkably like Ojo de Dios. So, I placed hanging string on the side of the ornament to better show off the cool striping at the top and bottom.

Currently using the 1 1/5 (2.5mm) needles to work up #41 “Crown and Heart” in gold against the grape background. The gold is so thin, I had to split the purple yarn in two (from 4 plies to 2) to get closer to the size. I probably should have doubled up on the gold, too, because the purple is still heavier. For next year, I should probably just get the same size thread in the colours I want.

I got really frustrated tying to take pictures of these things today. The colours never quite looked right on the view finder screen. They didn’t turn out too terribly bad though, once I looked at them on my computer. for the most part, I ended up getting at least one usable photo for each ball. I only wish I had gotten better pictures on the Selbu (because it’s my favourite pattern that I’ve finished so far) and the X’s and O’x Version II (because I think I did the best stranding work on that one). At least it looks like Crown and Heart will photograph well.

Also, I forgot to note that I’m doing the hanging loop differently. For some, I’m using the twisted cord method, for the rest I’m simply using strands of yarn, attaching them as the loops and knotting them at the top.

January 1, 2015 I finished the Crown & Heart ball and was all set to give it to a friend at my stitch-n-bitch group. It was raining on the night of the meeting, which was good because California is in an awful drought. The not-so-great part, though, was that it has been so dry, the land got hard so when it did rain, it didn’t absorb into the ground right away, causing flooding in some areas. The other not-so-great thing was that I stuck this ball in my bag to bring it to the meeting that night and between my studio, the house, and my car, it fell out and onto the patio outside. In all the rain. I think I picked it up pretty quickly, but parts of it were waterlogged. It didn’t look too bad but I would like to wash it before I give it away. It’s only cotton with polyfil, so all I need to do is throw it in a garment bag the next time I do a load of cold then let it dry. Then I’ll get pictures before it finally gets to its intended recipient.

I was a little iffy about the way my next ball, the Snow Crystal came out. The more I worked on it, the more I thought the two colours I used (White and Robin’s Egg) didn’t have enough contrast. I also used some stuffing that I got from a friend that became kinda lumpy. I entered it into a hand-made ornament white elephant-type swap I participated in with my friends from the Amigurumi Army. After getting “stolen” the twice (the maximum allowed), it wound up in the hands of Amihugs. I mentioned my reservations about the colour contrast, and my fellow crafters commented that the more subtle contrasting made it look more “frosty.” I was okay with that. And Amihugs just loves it! (For anyone interested, I got a bunch of snowflake and reindeer ornaments from hookerlily out of the swap.)

Around the beginning of December, I came across and subsequently fell in love with the Frozen-inspired Mommy and Me Frozen Mittens. I thought they’d be perfect for a Christmas Ball and I modified the large snowflake motif so that it would fit onto a Arne & Carlos Ball. The new chart wasn’t perfect. I ended up fudging some of it, including moving some of the increases so that the stitch count would work for the main snowflake pattern. The pattern was so intricate that it seemed to take quite a lot longer than the others. Still, I really like the way it came out, even if the colours in the photos didn’t come out so well. I charted out a few variations and I already started one more using one of the variation. The rest will have to be for next year.

♥