{ crochet } dodecahedron

One of my nursery families recently welcomed Baby Boy Number 2 into their family.  I was trying to figure out what I could crochet for him (not a hat because summer is coming), when I saw this on Pinterest:

source: Lots of Loops

  How perfect!  Baby's first ball, and the perfect thing to give a baby and his big brother.  After all, big brothers have the all-important-job of teaching their little brothers, among other things, how to play catch.

So I set off in search of a crochet pentagon pattern and turned up this from Heidi Bears.  I followed her pattern, making one small change to the final round (in her diagram):

ch3 in first of the 7sc from previous round (counts as first dc), 1dc in each of next 3 sc, [ch2, dc in each of next 9sc] repeat around, ending with 1 dc in each of last 5 sc

Crochet a total of 12 motifs.  With a 3 color scheme, this came out to two of each motif scheme.

Join the pentagons according to this drawing:

I started by joining 5 pentagons around one pentagon (6 pentagons total) to make 2 of these:

Then I joined the two pieces together.  This looks easier than it is.  After ending up with a completely wonky shape, I pulled out my join and used stitch markers to join the point (vertex, for all you geometry buffs) at which the three pieces meet:

With the stitch markers in place, it was sooooo much easier to see what connected to where (or maybe it's just me...geometry was not my best subject)

Just before you join that last edge or two, fill your shape with stuffing.  Here's where I realized it was going to be less of a flat sided "dodecahedron" and more of a "sphere" ball shape.  

 Still adorable, right?

And for those who might wonder, I used Lion Brand Cotton Ease yarn in Maize, Lake and Lime.

Happy crocheting!