cloth baby ball pattern

I have/had that pattern and made several of the balls a 8-10 years ago. There are three sizes, I believe. Unfortunately the pattern isn't where it should be, but there are a couple of places I can look tomorrow when my prowling around won't wake up DH.

I remember they are rather time-consuming to make.

Doreen in Alabama

Is this the one you are looking for? Paris

Looks right to me. I'm glad you found it, because my pattern didn't turn up this morning. (I did find something else I've been searching for, however, and a big trash bag of 'stuff' to get rid of, so the time was well spent!)

Doreen in Alabama

Actually, now that I clicked the link to the pattern page, this isn't exactly the same as the pattern I had, because there is no wedge shaped piece. In the photo, it looks like the same ball as mine, though:

Doreen in Alabama

doesn't fit the OP's description, but it's a nifty pattern nonetheless.

I got a little cross-eyed trying to see how it's made -- misled by the twelve components, I was trying to see a dodecahedron. But upon reading the assembly instructions the second time, it's plain that the three-cornered footballs mark the *edges* of an octahedron.

The pattern makes it plain that the exact shape of the little footballs isn't important. One could sketch out any pointy oval that's longer than the width of a baby's hand, and narrower than the length of its palm, and the pattern would work.

And one could sew them along the edges of other polyhedrons, but the octahedron has the fewest edges of those that come out reasonably ball-shaped. A tetrahedron could be made with only four footballs, but when you throw it, it's not going to roll.

In addition to being too cornery, a cube would be too hollow, and with only three footballs at a corner, it would be loppy. (You are welcome to make these up and prove me wrong!) And the cube also requires twelve footballs, so you might as well make the octahedron.

The dodecahedron and the icosahedron would take thirty footballs, and would be obviously a network of edges. But with five footballs meeting at each corner, and only three to a loop (opposed to five to a loop and three meeting at a corner for the dodecahedron), the icosahedron might be reasonably firm.

Which exhausts the platonic solids, and I'm sure the semi-regular polyhedrons would be even less suitable. (Besides, I can't remember what they are, except that one group had regular faces, the other had regular corners, and one of the groups was named after Archimedes.)

Joy Beeson

Is this it?

Sorry, you lost me on that first dodecahedron.