Nalbinding Project #8 -- Oslo Stitch sphere/ball

Another quick little twiddle to explore shaping in nalbinding as well as everything else.  This is in Oslo stitch since I'm unlikely to do other stitches until after my upcoming class is done.

I have seen nalbinding spheres out there but don't have access to a pattern.  So I made it up myself!

I did the slip-knot loop start, where pulling on the tail tightens the loop.

Start by putting 16 oslo stitches into the loop.

Start the spiral.  In the first round, double the stitches (32 stitches)

At this point, the fabric was already starting to get ruffly, so I stopped increasing.

Do 5 rounds without any more increases or decreases.

Then do 1 round of decreasing half the stitches (back to 16 stitches)

Run the yarn end through the loops of the final round and pull tight.  Well, before you pull tight, tuck in random yarn ends and stuff the ball.

It turned out well.  I didn't stuff it too full.  But it looks sufficiently spherical for my purposes.  In white, it's a snowball.  Stuff with catnip, a cat toy.  In a bright color, some kind of fruit.  Etc.  One can juggle with it or use it as an ornament.

Here's a pic before I stuffed the ball and pulled the top shut.

As part of this project, I experimented with ways to do the join where one length of yarn ends and the other begins, all in the "lazy join" category where one tucks in the two ends, securing them in a way that reduces the chance of the ends working loose.

I'm not great at most of them; they end up making an obvious blip in how the pattern looks.  But I'm getting better.  Mostly it helps to hide the end by running it through the tops of the loops on the back side, and also trying to make sure there's a 360º overlap of old and new (i.e. trace the path of one loop with the end of the old yarn and the beginning of the new yarn).  I'll continue to try the various suggestions I see floating around.  I might try the simple knot method, where one drops the old thread and starts with the new, and then knots the two ends together on the back of the work in the area between my thumb and the rest of my hand.  Heck, someday I'll even use wool yarn and do some actual spit-splicing.

Here's a stitch I want to try -- Happy Nalbinding calls it a "skip stitch" in this video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI1kuE-jmXk.  It's sort of the opposite of the Björsbo stitch.  It's like the Oslo stitch in that it's a 1+1 stitch.  But after the thread goes through the loop on the back of the thumb, it goes over the loop on the front of the thumb and then under the working yarn.  (Björsbo goes under the loop on the front of the thumb and then over the working yarn.  Oslo goes under both.)

But I also want to continue all the other explorations.  So I'll do that.  All the stitch families.  Known examples.  Modern experiments.  Basketry-ish simple/proto nalbinding.  Etc.  Plus interesting things to make.

I still am pretty sure I don't want to make nalbinding socks, but I'm not ruling out slippers.