A couple weeks ago, I helped one of my students dissect a baseball to see what was inside. We had watched a YouTube video that told us what baseballs were made of, but just knowing the answer wasn’t enough. We had to destroy our own baseball to be satisfied that the internet was telling us the truth. One thing that surprised me was that inside that tiny baseball was a significant amount of wool yarn. I kept the yarn and we discarded the other parts of the baseball.

Last week Doug and I went for a walk around town. As we walked through the park, we kept to the forest line behind the ball field. We were lucky enough to find a stray baseball, so now I can share the process of dissecting a baseball as well as two projects you can make out of a single ball. The best part about these projects is that they don’t cost anything (if you’re fortunate enough to find an abandoned baseball!)

First I cut around the stitches with an x-acto knife:

I put aside the stitches and the outer layer and began unraveling the white string. Under the white string layer were 5 different pieces of gray wool yarn, all of varying lengths. Finally in the center was a rubber coated ball of cork:

Now that the ball has been disassembled, you can use some of the parts for other fun projects. If you find the end of the red stitching, you can untie it, cut the stitching in half, and use it to make two bracelets. I soaked the pieces in warm water so the cowhide would be more flexible and could flatten out:

After you flatten out the stitches and the pieces are dry, you can trim off hide from each end, leaving long red strings on either side to tie it on your wrist!

For my second project I used the yarn from the baseball my student took apart at school. I crocheted the yarn into three tiny nesting baskets:

They’re small, but they can still be used for a variety of purposes:

After making these I still had leftover yarn from my student’s baseball, plus all of the yarn from my own baseball.

Now I just need ideas for what else I can make with the rest of the yarn!