Crochet Pokéball Postcard Pattern

My favourite local yarn store, Black Sheep at Orenco, got turned into a pokémon gym with the advent of Pokémon Go, and I was so pleased by this that I thought I’d make a pattern! Now, pokéball patterns are a dime a dozen, but what I wanted was something that would be easy to print up nicely and give away, so that’s what I made. I’ll have a batch to give away at Albuquerque Mini Maker Faire on Aug 27-28, and hopefully the lovely folk at Black Sheep at Orenco will let me give away some there too.

Here’s the pages as images, but if you’d like to print it yourself or save it in your collection, I recommend the Pokeball postcard pattern pdf. It’s intended for a 4×6 postcard, or both sides will print onto a single 8.5×11″ sheet of paper. (Also, you can queue it as Pokéball Postcard on ravelry.)

Pokeball-pattern-1

Pokeball-pattern-2

(The text version of the pattern is at the bottom of this post)

Need help? There are lots of great tutorials out there, including video tutorials on youtube. If the first one you find doesn’t work for you, there’s many more options!

Here’s a few tutorials you might need for this pattern:

Still confused? You can probably also find an expert or a class at your local yarn store.

Love the pattern and want to thank me? Here’s a few things you can do:

  1. I don’t take tips, but I love seeing photos of what people have done with my patterns, so feel free to drop me an email at terri (at) toybox.ca.
  2. Make a pokeball and leave it for someone to find at your local pokestop or gym!
  3. Buy something at Black Sheep at Orenco so my favourite yarn store stays in business. (If you’re a crocheter and haven’t tried Teresa Ruch’s tencel, I recommend splurging on a ball and making a shawl or scarf. Such saturated colours with beautiful shine; the pictures hardly do it justice!)
  4. Buy something from my pattern editor’s most excellent store Flying Corgi Studios. I’m a big fan of her teacup pincushions, as you may have noticed in my photos!

Feel free to print this pattern out for friends or strangers and do whatever you’d like with your pokeballs! (Although please don’t hurt anyone with them!)

Crochet PoKéBall

A free amigurumi pattern by Terri Oda

Materials: Yarn in red, white, black. Crochet hook appropriate for yarn or smaller to avoid holes.
Yarn needle. Stuffing (polyfill and/or beans work well)
Picture uses worsted weight and size I or 5.5mm hook.
sc single crochet
inc increase by doing two single crochet in a single crochet stitch
dec “invisible” decrease: pull up loop in outside-of-ball half of next stitch, then full following stitch. Finish by pulling though all 3 loops on hook.
When starting your next stitch, be careful not to re-use the 2nd stitch in the decrease by accident.

Button:
0 (white): 6 sc in a magic circle loop
There are great tutorials for magic circles online!
1 (black): Switch colours to black, 2sc in each stitch (for total of 12 stitches)
Cut yarn, leaving a long black tail for sewing
Ball:
0 (red): 6 sc in a magic circle loop (6 stitches)
1 (red): increase (inc) 6 times (12 stitches)
2 (red): { inc in next stitch, sc in following one } repeat 6 times (18 stitches total)
3 (red): { inc, sc, sc } 6 times (24 stitches)
4 (red): { inc, sc 3 times } 6 times (30 stitches)
5-7 (red): sc around (30 stitches)
8 (black): change to black, sc around (30 stitches)
Don’t worry if your colour change looks obvious, it will be covered by the button.
9-11 (white): change to white, sc around (30 stitches)
12 (white): { dec, sc 3 times } 6 times (24 stitches)
13 (white): { dec, sc, sc } 6 times (18 stitches)
Start filling ball. You may need to stuff more as you go
14 (white): { dec, sc } 6 times (12 stitches)
15 (white): dec 6 times (6 stitches). Last chance to stuff!
Cut thread and pull through to close circle.

Sew button onto ball, covering the area with colour change. Toss at a pokémon to catch it!

Yarn Subscription preview, August 2016 (Yarn of the Month and Jimmy Beans Beanie Bags)

Jimmy Beans Beanie Bags vs Yarn of the Month

Not pictured:
Beanie bags came with the usual bag (olympic themed), t-pins, a packet of soak, and some coaster patterns that I’m excited about because crochet mandalas are still all the rage.

YOTM came with swatch patterns and a copy of this pattern. It was printed with a printer clearly running low on ink, but legible if a bit more stripey pop-art than probably intended.

As is somewhat usual, Beanie Bags offers more, smaller samples than YOTM. The YOTM samples are both silk blends so probably a bit more fancy than the BB ones this month, although they’re a neat range of linen and cotton and blends. Love the colours in both.

There’s also a 3rd option in the smaller yarn subscription front! Jimmy beans has a “BIG beanie bag” that comes in at $25 and contains everything you need (except knitting needles) for one small project. I signed up to get 3 bags (May, June, July) and have thus far received one for fingerless gloves and two fairly different cowls (which I will take pictures of later, but you can see the first two here), the second of which was a brioche thing that I was really excited to try. Two of these I’ve already knit up because they’re perfect “grab and go” kits with the pattern and everything inside, and especially with the chaos of this summer, I’ve had need for easy kits, so it worked out pretty well. I’m not on an auto-renew, though, so no August kit for me!

Both beanie bags and YOTM continue to be a nice value for your money if you want to try little yarn samples, but it’s nice to have a slightly larger option too. It’s tempting to drop the two little subscriptions and have just the big one for a while!

Yarn of the Month Club, July 2015

Hello my poor neglected maker blog, long time no see! It’s been a busy few months, in good ways, in bad ways, in sad ways. But I have been making things, and maybe I’ll eventually take pictures of my wedding dress and maybe I’ll eventually frog that section of the cardi that wasn’t right and maybe I’ll take some better photos of the pokéball and get some cards printed to hand out. Or maybe I’ll get caught up in the new things I want to make for maker faire and disappear again. Such is life.

What I will do today is document July’s YOTM shipment, since I finished those swatches and finally got around to taking some photos of them.

Debbi Bliss yarn samples (YOTM)

These two yarns are pretty similar, with the black Cleo slightly thicker than the pink Loli, but both with a similar icord type structure.

Cleo by Debbi Bliss

4.75 sts/inch on US 8
62% cotton, 38% polyester
98 yards. Color: 60001

Front of swatch:
20160812-IMG_0865.jpg

Back of swatch:
20160812-IMG_0866.jpg

I really love this swatch: it’s pleasantly sproingy and black, which means it would make a lovely face scrubby for makeup removal. I may just adopt it for that rather than saving it for the swatch blanket.

Loli by Debbi Bliss

6 sts/inch on US 6
80% cotton, 20% polyester
120 yards. color: 61006

Loli by Debbi Bliss (YOTM Sample)
The colour pops are actually looser than the main yarn, which was a surprise!

Front of swatch:
20160812-IMG_0867.jpg

That’s definitely not the promised 5″ square, but I decided I wasn’t in the mood to re-knit it at the time because the needles I was using tended to snag.

Back of swatch:
20160812-IMG_0868.jpg

This blend is much more cotton-like than the Cleo, feeling more like a more stretchy cotton rather than like a lofty polyester.

Both of these yarns were pretty similar to knit: springy, liable to catch on the lousy needles I was using but no problem with good needles. I liked the swatch patterns (thankfully no mistakes in the swatch this time!) I gather from a bit of searching that they’re meant to be beginner-friendly yarns, which makes some sense.

They knit up quickly once I switched needles. I’d definitely consider using these yarns for kids toys or anything else where washability and durability was a priority. They’d probably be good for summer stuff or folk avoiding animal fibers, although they don’t feel particularly luxurious to me so I don’t think I’d make big projects out of them. Still, fun to try!