cRazY ugly crochet ball

"Hmm," you're thinking.  "What's up with the title?  This doesn't seem so ugly".  

And that's sweet of you.  Yes, it's not so bad.  In fact, I went ahead and made three of these balls from a pattern I found on Martha's website.  You know, THE Martha, no need for a last name there, am I right?  (Sadly the internal link on her website leading to the pattern is broken.  So no link for you!  You can search "crochet baby blanket and ball" to find it, and ignore the blanket part as I did if you like.  Perhaps it'll work for you.  The website that is.  If not, here's a link to another, different pattern that should give similar results, though I can't speak for it, not having tried it out.)  I even went ahead and put a jingly bell inside the ball above.  To make it more attractive to Lila.  Takes a lot to catch and hold that girl's attention, you know.  

"Oh, this one's not so bad either," I can hear you say.  But, what you don't know is:

AGGHHH!  Those two are one!?  Yes, one lumpy, dumpy, frumpy, frankensteinian mishmash trying to pass as a ball.  And it's huge.  In my defense:  1) I was trying to use up leftover yarns and had no idea the finished product would end up so big, requiring three different yarns to finish it  2) I have no idea what I'm doing  3) I didn't read through the instructions thoroughly before starting, or do a test swatch to check my sizing.  Nope.  Just plowed right on ahead with this one.  Wasn't going to let some silly instructions get in my way.  So I can't blame Martha for this.  This was all me.  

But behold!  The child is not frightened by the ball.  She plays with it, even.  She likes the jingly sound.  She doesn't care that it's not really round shaped.  Children.  So accepting.  

Of course, now you are wondering, "where are the other two"?  Well, I'm not one to let defeat stop me from trying again, as you already know from this post.  I decided I wanted to make this ball right, and now that I knew I needed to size it down a good deal, and had actually finally read through the instructions, I felt ready.  I mean c'mon.  It's supposed to be a tennis-ball-sized baby ball.  How hard can that really be?

So here's ball #2:

And you can see how much closer to the actual ball shape I managed to get.  I'm choking on my own sarcasm.  In my defense:  1) I have no idea what I'm doing.  

Rereading the instructions, I realized I missed the all-important step of increasing the ball size by stitching two single crochets into each stitch from the initial round.  Such a simple mistake.  Well, I decided to again just plow ahead and finish the monstrosity I'd started.  Again, I didn't have quite enough of either yarn to finish, so it ended up a stripey egg football mess.  Oh well, I put a squeaker in it, and baby likes it.  

Because I have an iron will, upon giving it some thought, I decided once again that I would see the completed, correctly crocheted ball if it killed me.  It didn't kill me, but I did have to go grab a new skein of yarn, having run out of the ones I wanted to use up.  So, here we have attempt #3:

Hey!  We have a winner!  It's a ball, folks, a recognizable round ball.  This time, I sat quietly alone and closely followed the directions, unlike the first time when I was sitting in a coffee shop chatting with the other ladies of the knitting and crochet group, or the second time, when I was trying to watch Lila and crochet at the same time.  On this ball I took my time, and had lots of experience to build from.  I mean I'd already made every possible mistake, so this time I was golden.  And this little ball received the disemboweled innards of a cat toy that the dogs tore apart.  Which is why we don't keep cat toys in the house anymore.  But it makes a lovely rattley sound thanks to those innards.  

And here are the Three Stooges together.  Lila has three new squishy squeaky jingly toys to play with.  

I have to mention that the instructions suggest these would make a nice cat toy, as an alternative to the baby toy.  Nuh-uh.  As the dogs did not immediately try to shred them, they are in fact not cat toys.  Proof?  Look at Mr. Tom Tom.  He has no interest.  And I have to say that even the "normal" ball is too large for a cat.  Just what type of cats is Martha keeping?  Tigers?

Sweet sleepy baby.  Just woke up, and mommy puts her to work.  It's a sweatshop life being the daughter of a crafting  mom.  Endless photo shoots, hours spent trudging through the fabric store, clothing changes every time a new outfit is sewn....  But, every now and then, she gets a new toy out of the deal.  Wuv you Lila. 

Best Wishes!

Teresa

i heart embroidery

Do you love it too?  I'm no expert in embroidery, but one doesn't have to be.  It's a very accessible craft, don't you think?  Just you, a needle and floss, a quiet evening, and some medium into which to sew.  In this case, felt.  Because I love felt too.  It's also accessible, and it's affordable, colorful, and useful.  I love the texturality of it (I think I just made up a word there), and that it doesn't fray when cut.  There's no right or wrong side, no bias, no need to iron, and it's easy to stash away in a drawer.  Don't be jealous, fabric.  I love you too, and you know it.  But felt will always have a place in my <3.    

So just what is this mess, you're wondering?  Well in my mind, these are wonderful teaching tools for Lila, so she can learn her colors and shapes.  In Lila's mind, they're squishy little toys for her to spread out, throw around, and give to the dogs to slobber on.  Fair enough.  I'm actually pretty happy that she plays with them.  Notice how she spread them out into an arc?  That wasn't me setting them up for a photo shoot, that was all her.  Girl likes to have her tools at hand.

  

Looking closely, you'll see that I used two colors for each toy - a main color, and an accent color for the back and embroidery.  I did that to stop myself from making twenty of these things.  I have enough felt on hand to make hundreds, and of course I wanted to use as many colors as possible, and I know how my mind works.  I needed a limit, and as it is, I barely kept myself down to ten.  There's no dark blue in the set after all....

To make these little squishies I first sketched out shapes onto paper.  (If I'd thought about it, I could have saved myself some time and gone online to find printable shapes (like this website), which I could then manipulate to the size I wanted using my printer settings).  Next I cut out the front piece from one sheet of felt, and used it as a template to cut out another, slightly larger shape, from the alternate color of felt.  Felt sort of sticks to itself, so it wasn't hard to do.  

Next, I had fun with embroidery, stitching whatever shapes or patterns came to mind.  I made sure to leave space all around the edge for the blanket, or buttonhole stitching that you see, which was the next step.  Here's a picture of what the back of my completed oval squishy looks like:

You can see the stitching well on this one because I had a hard time finding coordinating floss for that royal purple.  After I had only an inch or so left to stitch around the outside of my shape, I grabbed some polyfil and stuffed until it was nice and squishy - not too hard or soft.  Goldilocks.  

Then I finished off my stitching and secured with a knot. To keep it looking clean, I pushed the needle into the middle of the toy, starting right next to the knot. Holding onto the end of the needle, I ran it through the polyfil, and out the middle of the back side.  I tugged a little (the toy gets squished a bit here), cut off the floss right at the felt, and then massaged the back until the floss receded into the toy.  The polyfil will hold the floss in place quite nicely that way, the exit hole will never show, and you won't easily notice where you tied off.  This may not be the "professional" way to do it, but it's good enough for a felt toy.  Reference the above photo for confirmation.  

And that's it!  Pretty simple, really, and each time I finished another it was its own little reward.  The part I enjoyed most was having fun with the patterns in the middle, like the diamond below:

These squishy toys also upped my embroidery skills a notch.  I feel pretty good about my french knot these days.  If you're looking for some tutorials on different stitches, you'll find plenty online.  Here's an excellent one, with tutorials for all the stitches you'll ever need listed along the left side of the blog.

Wondering which is my favorite?  You know a mother never chooses from among her children.  But it's the moon.  I like the embroidery I chose for it, and also I like it because that's Lila's middle name.  No, not Embroidery.  That would be silly.  I mean I love it and all, but c'mon.  Moon.  Lila Moon.  

And can I just say that it was smart of me to finish these before the arrival of baby Lila?  I'm not sure I'd have the mental capacity to complete a project like this with a little one on hand.  You probably could, but me, no.  Though, taken one at a time, this is actually a reasonable project if you're not in a rush.  And embroidery is sort of relaxing in a way, isn't it?  So if you decide to try this out, let me know - I'd love to hear how it goes for you. 

(Is "flower" a shape?  Hmmm...)

Best Wishes,

Teresa