Weldon’s Mystery Project: Worsted Balls

The last couple of weeks, we shared with you some Weldon’s mystery projects—projects that lack an accompanying illustration. This week, we offer up another mysterious Victorian knitting project for you to cast on from the pages of Weldon’s Practical Needlework, Volume 1: Worsted Balls. (Yes, you read that correctly.) What in tarnation do these Weldon’s Worsted Balls look like?

Here is the pattern just as it was presented in 1886, with neither alterations nor corrections. If you’re in need of a knitting project, we encourage you to cast on Weldon’s Worsted Balls and email us a photo at piecework@longthreadmedia.com.

Happy knitting!
Elizabeth

Worsted Balls.

These worsted balls, which give so much pleasure to the little ones, are easily made out of the odds and ends of bright yarns which are the accumulated debris of Christmas fancy work. There are six sections in the ball, each one of which may be of a different colour if desired. Use two No. 16 knitting pins Cast on four stitches, knit first row plain, widen one at each end of each row till you have sixteen stitches on the needle, knit four rows plain. You are now in the middle of a section, decrease in the same ratio you have increased until you have but four stitches, bind off and fasten yarn securely. Crochet the sections together and stuff with cotton. Put some shot in a tiny box in the centre, and you will also have a rattle. The sections may be sewed together on the wrong side and a row of cross-stitch of other coloured yarn or silk worked on the right side.