Knitting Balls

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So I wanted to knit balls. Christmas balls, that is, using my own Mergelland yarn. The famous Arne and Carlos wrote a book about it. I’ve bought it and tried the pattern using 4 mm circulars. Quite obviously they’ve used different yarn, so the ball I ended up making would require an XXL Christmas tree.

Sizing down the pattern isn’t difficult, but I was not too happy with the esthetic aspect of increases and decreases. I tried a few things without really thinking it through, so now I have a series of different balls. Every single ball has some kind of issue: holes that make the filling peep through, unbalanced increases and decreases which make both sides of the ball look different, almost invisible or over-large increases and decreases.

That’s where I started thinking that I should approach this more systematically. How many different ways can one imagine to knit a ball? Which one is most suitable in which situation? Which type of increases and decreases do I prefer? How do I pair them?

That’s only considering balls in stockinette stitch! See that little garter ridge on the grey ball? How do I avoid those circles becoming squares because of the increases and decreases? Not showing on the picture: I tried cables … What a disaster! I’ve frogged them instantly!

All the thinking and trying out has taken a bit more time than I thought. Let’s be clear, we’re no longer talking Christmas 2017. Before we’ve sorted it all out, it’s going to be high time to knit the 2018 Christmas balls!

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