Baseball Pattern

Skill Level:
Intermediate

Materials:
Needles:	#5 straight needles
Yarn:	1 skein worsted weight, white
Other Materials:	1 hank of red embroidery floss
	stitch markers to hold pieces together while seaming
	stuffing (must be white)

Gauge:
6 stitches per inch
7 rows per inch

Stitch Explanation:
inc—Increase one st in the manner of your choice, as long as it does not leave a hole.
K2tog—Knit two together.
ssk—Slip, slip, knit.

Notes:

The leather covering of a baseball is made of two figure eight shapes which are then sewn together. The following pattern is for one figure eight. You will make two and then stitch them together with the red floss.

Pattern for Figure 8s: (make 2)

Cast on 7 sts.
P 1 row.
Row 1: K1, inc 1, K2, inc 1, K2, inc 1, K1, inc 1, K1—11 sts.
Row 2 and all even rows: P.
Row 3: K1, inc 1, K to last st, inc 1, K1—13 sts.
Row 5: K.
Row 7: K.
Row 9: K1, ssk, K to last 3 sts, K2tog, K1—11 sts.
Row 11: K.
Row 13: K1, ssk, K to last 3 sts, K2tog, K1—9 sts.
Row 15: K.
Row 17: K1, ssk, K to last 3 sts, K2tog, K1—7 sts.
Row 19: K.
Row 21: K3, K2 tog, K2—6 sts.
Row 23: K3, inc 1, K3—7sts.
Row 25: K.
Row 27: K1, inc 1, K to last st, inc 1, K1—9 sts.
Row 29: K.
Row 31: K1, inc 1, K to last st, inc 1, K1—11 sts.
Row 33: K.
Row 35: K1, inc 1, K to last st, inc 1, K1—13 sts.
Row 37: K.
Row 39: K.
Row 41: K1, ssk, K to last 3 sts, K2tog, K1—11 sts.
Row 43: K1, ssk twice, K1, K2tog twice, K1—7 sts.
Row 45: Cast off.

Finishing:
Arrange the two figure eights as in the below photograph.

Begin sewing the seams invisibly as in the below photographs. You may use stitch markers to hold the figure eights in place if you wish. Do not use safety pins as they will snag on the yarn.

When seams are mostly complete, begin inserting stuffing:

Continue adding stuffing, a bit at a time while seaming, until stuffing and seaming are complete. The ball should be slightly overstuffed so it will be nicely filled out. It should now look like this:

Thread a needle with the embroidery floss and commence adding the trademark red stitches. There are 108 stitches, fairly closely spaced. By "stitch" I mean each V-shaped stitch, which is technically two stitches. Of course, for aesthetic purposes, you may not wish to use that many. They resemble Vs and, obviously, run along the seam of the two figure eights. You may do both sides of each stitch at once, or you may go along one side of the seam and then return and do the other side. I chose to do one side at a time so I wouldn't have to rip out two stitches to correct errors.

I didn't bother with fancy stitches; I essentially looped the floss around the yarn, one stitch of floss wrapped around one knitted stitch. There are obviously not enough knitted rows to put one floss stitch per row, so you may have to run the floss around the same piece of yarn more than once. You will have to be very careful about spacing, and don't worry about mistakes; just rip them out and redo them. Knitting the baseball was the easy part, so take your time here and do this well.

I used several stitch markers to divide the ball into sections so I could calculate how many stitches to put in a given area; this helped to keep them evenly spaced.

Once complete, weave in the loose ends of the floss as well as possible.

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