Franken Ball

It’s high time I introduced you all to Franken Ball!

As any crafter knows, when the project is done there are always scraps and bits and pieces of crafting materials left over. They are too small to be used again for their original intention but it often feels wrong throwing them away. It could be some extra scraps of material from cutting out a pattern, left over beads from making jewelry, or in my case, left over bits of yarn.

At the end of every knitting project, even if it’s knit completely in one color you will usually have at least a couple tails left over from your working yarn. These pieces are usually only a few inches long and can’t really be used for another knitting project. I think most people probably toss these. I on the other hand, compulsively save them.

Once I have a good amount, like a plastic baggy full, I sit down and go through them. The ones that are something like 2inches are under go back into a different collection and are used as filling for small things like cherries on top of hats and what not.

Anything longer than that gets tied end to end in random order and wound into a ball: Franken Ball.

Franken ball is always different, always’s growing, always random and really fun to work with! I like to find different textures to add to Franken Ball because they really change things up. Once in a while I find a damaged sweater or scarf and pull it apart and add pieces to Franken Ball but for the most part, Franken Ball is made up of pieces of my working yarn or ends of a skein or ball that aren’t useful for anything else.

Most people would probably find tying billions of pieces of yarn together to be pretty tedious but I’ve always had a thing for tedious projects. They keep my hands busy without taking up too much of my brain, I find them soothing.

Franken yarn also looks really cool because it is intentionally random, you never know how exactly a project will look! Because I use so many different types of yarn on Franken Ball, I usually knit it with a second yarn to make up for any lack of bulk.