Bowling

I am knitting a bowling ball set for z. It's from New Knits from the Block (many thanks to knittinmama for the pattern idea and loan of the book). This project was started while the sweater was blocking also. I couldn't decide between lace and toy...I figure when I get tired of doing one, I can switch to the other--'cause one's mindless and fast (doubled worsted weight in the round) and the other is just a pleasure but requires concentration and very thin yarn.

First off, I've never knit a ball before, so I don't know if there's a 'proper' way. My ball turned out a little off. Not that round, but that may have been partly due to my modifications. In the original pattern, there are no finger holes, instead, you stitch in circles in white. Well, z would have none of that. How can you have a bowling ball without finger holes?!

So, I put them in. I guestimated and here's the result:

I think that I may knit a larger bowling ball for z -- heck, it really didn't take that long. Maybe this will be the prototype ball. Oh, and the black yarn I received as a RAK (or is it a RAK if you ask for yarn?!--it's a AK). Anyway, thanks goes to knitherapy for the black acrylic yarn. She also sent me a skein of lovely silky wool...how cool is that?! the silky wool will become a scarf at a later point.

As for the bowling pins, he actually wanted each pin to be a different color, and the coordinating part being the red stripe for all the pins.

Again I test knitted this. I doubled worsted weight yarn and decided that was way too small (don't ask me how I figured that one out). I trebled the yarn and started knitting a pin...uhh...the pin was going to take more than one skein of acrylic! Not only that, but I projected that the finished object was going to be ginormous. So, that got ripped.

Tried the doubled yarn again and this time, used US7 needles instead of US4 and found that the knit fabric still held and yet looks nice.

So, that's the shocking green yarn in the back. It's recommended that you add beans on the bottom of the pins to help them stay up, but I think that the pins might get nasty. So, instead, I've got some old film canisters that I will fill up with sand, and then tape well and use that to see if that bit of extra weight would work for the game. Altho' I guess that if they are too heavy, this will be akin to the carnival scam games where you can't knock anything down.