Dissection of a hacky sack

So on Saturday when I should have been studying for the social work licensing exam I decided to dissect a hacky sack that I had swiped from my brother (with post-swiping permission). I did this for a few reasons. First, my brother is 19 years old and like most, succumbed to gender socialization (yay I'm using my psych degree). In other words, he will "never" knit or crochet because "that's for girls." So when I told him that hacky sacks are crocheted, he suddenly became tentatively interested. Occasionally I catch him watching me knit or crochet and he'll ask me questions like, "what are all those orange plastic circles for?" He will then prepare himself to answer my inevitable question, "do you want me to show you how to knit?," with an immediate, "no." The second reason I wanted to unravel (pun intended) the mystery is for my own curiosity. Also, it will give me another gifting option for someone who claims to only need one scarf, one hat, and nary an electronic gadget cover.

So, on to the dissection:

This is what the hacky sack looked like. My mom bought him a case of them from Oriental Trading one birthday. This is after removing the insides and turning it inside-out. It is fair-isled. I had never realized that you could fair-isle crochet too. Makes sense, though.
This is what was inside. A plastic bag with little plastic pellets. I think the pellets are recycled. Kudos to the manufacturer, although the hacky sacks are probably made by 12-year-olds in China.
This is after taking out the black part, which was was not fun to undo. Why did the decreased and increased sections have to be black? It made it difficult to document construction at first, but I got the hang of it. Interestingly, the increases and decreases were not done at even increments. It was fun to unravel the colored portions, though. Almost done...hey this looks like a yarmulke for a cabbage patch kid.When the increases became even, it ended up being a septagon (is that a word?). You can tell evening had reached night. My guilt for not studying was ever-growing at this point.The aftermath:I was thinking about re-crocheting this with these little balls of 3-ply (embroidery floss?) Then I came back to reality. I popped these in an envelope and mailed it to my brother with the following note: "Betcha can't guess what this is?" I felt like one of those psychotic killers on Law and Order who mails trophies from their killings to the police. Also, I am worried that the USPS will bring in dogs to sniff it after feeling the plastic pellets through the envelope.

Stay tuned for a pattern.

Happy knitting!