Thursday, May 7, 2015

What does slinging do to a sling ball?

Well it's not pretty.  Slinging your ballistic crochet will make it dirty, looser, and the stuffing will break and fall out a bit.  But after a dozen or so hard slings at a rough rock face target, this ball is holding together well.  So not to worry, you can always make more, and as they say, sling balls would be safe if you kept them in your pocket but that's not what slingballs were made for.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

A stuffing trick

Getting your projectiles stuffed tight enough can be difficult.  Often, it comes down to you jamming one bean at a time into the last stitching hole before you close.  But here's a trick.  Twist stitch the last two inches or so a bit loose, then stuff the ball tight as usual.  Right before the final closing knots you can go back and pull both sides of the twist-stitch tight.  This will give you a bit more slack for the closing knots and pull the halves together giving you a nice solid ball to sling with.  

Sunday, April 19, 2015

16 row bean-fed...Jupiter spot?

One of planet Jupiter's most striking features is its big red spot. Longer than three earths, this storm has raged for over 1/2 a century and is somewhat of a mystery. A mystery much like these spots on this 16 row bean-fed. I have noticed these hole features appearing on the last few slingballs and am wondering if they are consistent artifacts of errors in the crochet pattern. After all the pattern is merely an approximation of a sphere and perhaps the non-perfectness of it produces these holes of mystery.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Proven: balloons inadequate

I stuffed this 16 row asymmetrical trichrom with a balloon.  Inside the ballon stuffed with this tiny "yellow dhal". The dhal makes a great stuffing with a few small problems.  First it extrudes out of the crochet holes no matter how tight I crochet.  This is the reason for the balloon meant as a liner to hold them in.  But these projectiles are intended for slinging, and after only two throws the balloon ruptured.  I have experimented with balloons off and on but I am hereby official done.  

Thursday, April 9, 2015

16 row two-tone cornfed

the clippers are useful because they
can travel with you on an airplane,
not so the lighter, and the hooks are
hit and miss, depends on the THA
agent

16 Row Projectile Pattern:
Row 1) Ch 2. 6 Sc in second Ch from hook. (6)
Row 2) inc in each stitch around. (12)
Row 3) 1, +, 2, +, 1, +, 2, +, 1, + (17)
Row 4) 1, +, 3, +, 2, +, 3, +, 2, +, 1 (22)
Row 5) 2, +, 5, +, 4, +, 5, +, 2 (26)
Row 6) 4, +, 7, +, 8, +, 4 (29)
Row 7) 7, +, 9, +, 9, +, 1 (32)
Row 8) 13, +, 18 (33)

This guy is the perfect size and weight for slinging.  I am hoping it will also work for slinging at live targets that you want to hit but not hurt.  We will see.  This ballistic crochet ball was done with a # 2.5 hook, and I tried a different closing, tying it outside and then pulling the knot down into the ball from the other side using the hook.  It is likely to come out after the beating it will definitely receive being slung, but, it is also possible to res-tuff it with something different because I left enough tail to be able to retie it.