Quilt Ribbon Balls

After 20 some years of competing in dog agility, I have many ribbons stored away in boxes, never to be seen. Only title ribbons are displayed and even then most Nationals Qualifier, Regional and National placement ribbons are boxed away. 

Just one box of ribbons

One lady I know from agility, who is very crafty, had made some Christmas ornaments last year using her dogs' ribbons.  This year she offered to host a workshop to show us how to make them. She prepared tip sheet and the styrofoam balls for us.  We had a nice afternoon learning how to make Quilt Ribbon Balls.

My first Quilt Ribbon Ball

I decided I would decorate my little porch tree that I put in my sun room so I bought a package of balls, some ribbon, tassels, straight pins and craft glue. I originally intended to just make two more balls but now I've already made four more. So as there are six styrofoam balls in the small package, I'll likely end up making another two.

Multi-coloured

All Canadian

Royal Purple

Traditional Christmas

You can also make some simpler ornaments using the rosette from the ribbon. Several of these brought back memories. The green rosette ornament is made from two of Tucker's qualifying score runs in Advanced Team, one with a Border Collie named Meg and the other with a white Boxer named Cassius Clay. One of the white rosettes was from one of Ceilidh's Master Gambler runs. Not sure if it was a qualifying score, but the back of the rosette said it was her first run after surgery. She had surgery to remove a Mast Cell tumour in Jan 2010, we started back in agility in Mar 2010 but I had to let her go in May of 2010. 

I would say for me the hardest part of making these ribbon balls is marking the ball. My first one had lines going off everywhere. You don't have to mark the ball but it helps keep things lined up. 

Cutting the ribbon squares is easy to do but I'll admit it was hard for me to cut that first ribbon. I'm sure I'm not so careful as I should be cutting the squares so I've become somewhat of an expert at trimming the ribbon squares. You have to trim the squares if you're starting the reach the equator of the ball when doing the first half.  You don't want too much bulk where the rows will meet or the band of ribbon that hides the final row's raw edges won't sit nicely.

The link below is the video we watched to learn how to make the Ribbon Quilt balls. The lady in the video is using 2 1/2" fabric squares so it only takes three rows to cover each half of the ball. 

Fabric Quilt Balls

Our ribbon quilt balls use 2" ribbon squares as that is the width of many of our dogs' ribbons.  Because we are using a 2" square, it takes four rows to cover each half of the ball. That means pushing in a lot of pins, three pins for each square needed to cover the ball. You need a thimble or a chapstick tube to push in all those pins or your fingers will get sore. I find a chapstick works well for me, using the recessed end the actual tube to set the pin and then using the cap as a thimble to push the pins in.

My little porch tree is now decorated with my agility ribbon ornaments which is so much better than having them hidden away in boxes.

So many memories now decorate that tree!