Hello!
A Magic Ball in knitting/crochet is a ball or cake of yarn that is actually made up of several smaller skeins (usually leftovers, mini-skeins or samples). These yarns can be high-contrast, low-contrast, matchy-matchy, completely random, whatever your heart desires! (You can even play with making your own gradient skein by connecting colors that are just slightly different from one another.) These yarns can really be connected with any old knot (or your favorite form of splicing) but my preferred method is the Magic Knot.
The Magic Knot is a type of knot that is very small, solid and (best of all) reliable. It's almost imperceptible once the yarn is knit/crocheted and is an excellent choice when you're working a project where your ends won't stay put either due to the nature of the fabric or the nature of the yarn. You can even use it for superwash yarns & create your own self-striping sock yarn from your scraps if you'd like. I actually learned this technique years and years ago when I made jewelry, so it may be familiar to you once you see it laid out as well.
Supplies Needed:
2 strands of yarn (that's it!)
Featured Yarns in this Tutorial
(Jewel-Tones) Three Irish Girls’ Glenhaven Gold Sparkle in Margaritaville (Fingering-weight)
(Oranges) Three Irish Girls Adorn Luxe in Good Vibrations (Fingering-weight)
Magic Knot Tutorial:
Step 1. Lay your two yarn ends next to each other, but with the ends facing opposite directions.
Step 2. Take Color A (oranges) and cross it underneath Color B (jewel tones) so that they make an "X".
Step 3. Cross Color A’s tail up and over Color B and Color A.
Step 4. Pass Color A’s tail through the loop you’ve just made (from back to front). It should look like you’ve just tied a knot around Color B.
Step 5. Tighten the knot you've just made.
Step 6. Repeat Steps 2-5 with Color B.
Step 7. Pulling on the ends of each color that are not the tails, tighten the knot as much as you can without breaking the yarn.
Step 8. Trim the tails close to the knot, leaving about 1 cm to ensure the knot doesn't come undone.
Try It Out!
It's best to put a new technique into practice right away so that you can remember it in the future. Here are some of my patterns that are perfect for practicing this technique.
(pair a Magic Ball with a coordinating solid color)