Braided knitted ball for charity pattern – children love these!
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Braided blue comfort ball
This is a darling knitted ball that is easy to make. Make 2 – keep one for yourself and give the other to charity!
These are hand knitted – here are the instructions from ravelry.com – if you don’t belong, sign up – it’s free and full of wonderful people and patterns.
These balls are called ‘comfort balls’ and the children in hospital, homeless shelters and crisis centers love the soft toys. Â So do the adults 
If you want to make them for your local animal shelter, you can put a jingle bell inside of the ball inside of a plastic container like the clear balls that knee highs from Wal Mart come in. Â We don’t recommend bells inside of the ones going to children because of the choking hazard.
This is a perfect project for all the scrap yarn you have left over!.
We could really use donations of yarn to help us make these comfort toys. If you would like to share your stash with us, please mail donations to:
Relief Share
6078 Lundy Rd
Houston, MO 65483-2225
All donations are tax deductible, please include your email address so we can thank you
President Carol C Green
info@ReliefShare.org
11 Comments
July 25th, 2011 at 7:14 AM
Thank you for this pattern. It is great to find patterns for machines.
I want some for the Nursery at Church.
Are these to be used as washing machine balls too? Thank you xxx
July 25th, 2011 at 1:47 PM
Glad to share the pattern
They would be super to have in the nursery at church. Children and adults, both, love these. They are even more fun with variegated yarns and it’s great for using up scrap yarns left over from other projects.
They won’t work for the dryer balls, though, they are not heavy enough or hard enough. There is no stuffing in them – they are deliberately made softer so they don’t hurt anyone if a child gets bonked with one. The dryer ball pattern is on our blog under crochet but you can make dryer ball covers by knitting a doily and leaving out stitches so it curves and whipstitching two curved doilies (concave) over a ball of yarn – make sure it is wool, though.
July 29th, 2011 at 6:42 AM
Thank you for the pattern and the instructions, BUT, I can’t work out the way to weave in the 3rd strip. Sorry for being so dense. xxx
July 29th, 2011 at 1:03 PM
Hi Laurelbee,
I had the same problem when I first started knitting the braided balls. Following the pattern on ravelry.com I took strips of paper and carefully labeled them 1 2 3 4 5 6 and then glued them together to see how the ball was made. Then I squared them by folding the paper like a box so it would stand on the table as a reference when I was making the ball. It took a couple of tries, but I got it and can now make the balls easily
Good luck,
Hugs
Carol Green
Relief Share
President
November 6th, 2011 at 1:30 AM
[...] Charity work is so much fun and so rewarding to both the giver and the receiver. After running charities for 2 decades, finding patterns that are easy to make, quick to do, practical and actually fit is half the battle to getting the items sewn up and to where they are needed the most. Here is a resource list of patterns for you to get started!I found these patterns on the net and have made them to make sure they are what is needed. The hospitals and homeless shelters love them, so do the crisis centers. You may choose to donate locally to a charity in your community or send your donations to a favorite charity. If you don’t have a favorite charity or cause in mind, I would love it if you donated to ReliefShare.org – we work hard to respond to requests for help, and no one is paid throughout our charity – our work is of the heart, not the wallet and we are registered with the IRS as a non-profit. Whatever you do, please help somewhere – there is no corner on charity, I am thrilled at any charitable effort throughout the world. One charitable act, one person at a time, we can make the world a better place. Feel free to comment and post your favorite pattern you like to use, and if you have a favorite charity, we would love to hear about that, too. BABY BOOTIES – quick and easy and they fit!BIBS, BURP CLOTHSBABY HATS – knitted on circular needles, fast and fun!BRAIDED WOVEN BALL – knitted, very interesting and popular! [...]
November 30th, 2011 at 10:43 AM
[...] Knitted braided woven ball – http://www.reliefshare.org/wordpress/index.php/2011/06/07/braided-knitted-ball-for-charity-pattern-c... Sewn baby cocoon pattern – [...]
April 11th, 2012 at 6:31 PM
I really enjoy reading your site, please keep up the fabulous works that you have been doing. I will check back soon.
July 15th, 2012 at 12:01 PM
I Have been looking for an easy project to do that will help me increase my crafting skills. This is perfect, thank you!
July 23rd, 2012 at 11:27 AM
So glad we can help
Charity work is a lot of fun and learning new skills is a bonus.
August 3rd, 2012 at 11:29 AM
Alzheimer patients love these squishy and colorful balls! The ball takes six knitted strips (20 sts by 68 rows long). I came up with a fun idea! I knitted the six strips as directed only I did each strip in four colors since each strip makes 4 “humps” on the ball. I cast on the 20 stitches, then knitted 16 rows in the first color, 18 rows in the second and third colors, then finished with 16 rows of the last color. (The cast-on and cast-off rows add additional length to the end colors.) However, I had to find 24 different colors to make the ball truly unique but the finished product was worth the effort. This procedure will result in each “hump” being a different color (overlapping strips will hide the line where the colors change).
August 3rd, 2012 at 11:42 AM
One last comment for those who have problems weaving the strips together: The first two are easy, just sew each to form a separate ring. Then, weave the next two strips AT THE SAME TIME. It is easier to keep track of which goes “under” and which goes “over”. The tricky part (but you will soon get used to this) is weaving in the last two strips (numbers five and six). Once again, work them in at the same time, by weaving first one over and under a couple of finished strips of the ball, then do the second strip under and over the same strips. As you go around the ball, you won’t lose your place. Pin strips end to end and check ball to see that these strips have been woven correctly before sewing up the ends. This one step will save you from having to unpick your seam if you might have woven incorrectly. Once you can see that the ball is correctly “braided”, sew those end seams and enjoy your efforts!