Photo by Strickgut
From Hamburg in Germany, there lives a genius with needles and yarn by the Ravelry name Strickgut. She has made a beautiful and immaculate Christmas tree ball using the motifs from Wee Hearts, which is to my delight a colossal gift from her to All Knitters !
Photo by Strickgut
And because Strickgut is as generous as she is brilliant, she has provided the knitting community with her ball chart (by my request, but it is of the colorwork only, no inc/dec’s) which can be found on her project page on Ravelry, over here, so Knitters All, there is no reason we cant have some beautiful festive knitting in our holidays, gratis Strickgut. Danke Chen*chen!
Jenjoyce Design 
Gorgeous Christmas decoration. Petra you are a very talented knitter. Thank you so much for the chart.
Wen, I can be certain you’re stash diving and casting on within minutes! Me too! xx
Thank you so much!
It was just an idea of using the standard empty ball chart and fill in the wee hearts………. and Tata… here it is!
(I wonder, maybe, some other Jenjay charts would work also…..)
Delightful 3rd Advent,
xoxo Petra
Petra, the Wee Hearts if you can remember, originated from the sweater of Bobby Fisher’s opponent in the movie! Anyway, not really an original motif, just classic, it is YOUR chart which is the WOW.
Okay, dumb question (as I have never made a knitted ball) , what do you use as a ball form? Is it a hard styrofoam, or soft foam ball, or yarn, or …. ?
Thanks again ~~ xx
Oh, right, the movie was in Pawn Sacrifice, and Boris Spassky wears a sweater with the wee hearts motif… which was where I first saw it.
Jen, I stuff them mostly with filling for pillows (buying a cheap pillow from f.e. Ikea and tear it apart to reuse the stuffing) , mostly because the plastic fibre is lightweight and washable, but this time, I used chunky leftover yarn. Stuffing happens, before the last (about) three rounds were knitted, otherwise it is too narrow.
Gorgeous, generous and germane!
Thank you to Petra.
Lovely
Cheers
Karin
Karin, I found some interesting facts about the reason / beginning of making christmas balls:
The Christmas tree ball – German cultural property from Lauscha
(Lauscha is a german glassblower village. There is a book/roman “the glassblower” by Petra Durst-Benning telling a story from those poor days there)
According to legend, the idea of making colored glass balls for the Christmas tree came from a poor Lauscha glassblower who in 1847 couldn’t afford the expensive walnuts and apples. However, this cannot be proven. However, the order book of a glassblower from Lauscha has been preserved, in which an order for six dozen “Christmas balls” in various sizes was noted for the first time in 1848. So they were not made for their own tree.
The Christmas ornament conquers the USA
The real triumph of the Christmas tree ball did not begin until 1880, when the American Frank Winfield Woolworth, founder of the department store chain of the same name, imported the Christmas tree ball to the USA. As a result, production was greatly expanded. From then on, the manufacture of glass Christmas tree decorations established a very important economic sector for the region. The Christmas balls from Lauscha remained the only ones worldwide before the First World War.
It wasn’t until shortly before the war that companies abroad also started making these Christmas tree decorations from glass. The Christmas balls from Lauscha, the glass blowing town, are still made in the traditional way and with high quality.
That’s fascinating!!!
I wonder too about the influence of the British Royal Family. Queen Victoria was German and married to a German. Albert was an important force in introducing the Christmas Tree to England. I wonder if he had anything to do with introducing the balls to the world! The Americans, of course, were a Colonial country and many may have been very keen to emulate the British.
I remember my Mother’s decorations (German) very well.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I loved it.
Oh, lovely!!! I will definitely add that one to my list! I have made lots of Arne and Carl ornaments, they are so fun to make, and they don’t break!