My granddaughter loves “BeeBees” (balls) of every size - baseballs, soccer balls, basketballs, bouncy balls, and yes, even knitted balls to throw and catch! This gramma knows what she needs to do before the Peanut family arrives in town for the big, end-of-year holidays!

The way I’ve started these is stolen, unabashedly, from the MochimochiLand Snowmen I’ve been knitting, but only for the first two rounds…then it’s all from my head. I figured I had better write it down somewhere before I forget what I’ve done, so here you go…

Cast on 4 sts. Slide sts to other end of DPN, working the first round as for i-cord, and kf&b in every stitch. As you work, transfer the stitches to 3 or 4 DPNs.
Rnd 2: Kf&b in every stitch. You should have 16sts, divide evenly onto 4 DPNs, working the fabric with a 5th needle.
Rnd 3 (and all following odd rows): Knit
Rnd 4: (K1, M1, K2, M1, K1) on each needle around. (24)
Rnd 6: (K1, M1, K3, M1, K2) on each needle around. (32)
Rnd 8: (K1, M1, K4, M1, K3) on each needle around. (40)
Rnds 9-13: Knit
Rnd 14: (K1, k2tog, K3, k2tog, K2) on each needle. (32)
Rnd 16: (K1, k2tog, K2, k2tog, K1) on each needle. (24)
Rnd 18: (K1, k2tog, K1, k2tog) on each needle. (16)
Rnd 19: Knit
Stuff the ball with fiberfill until it is quite firm, you still have one more row to knit.
Rnd 20: K2tog around (8sts)
Cut yarn, draw through stitches and fasten off, sinking the tail through the middle of the ball a couple of times, and cutting the excess.

The size 4 needles make a VERY firm fabric. Using a larger needle will both loosen the fabric and also make a larger ball. Smaller needles will do the opposite.

Another re-size option is to simply knit fewer incs/decs for a smaller ball, OR knit more incs/decs for a larger ball. You may also wish to decrease or increase the number of plain knit rows as you resize the pattern. It’s fully customizable that way!!!

The blue ball is knit as written, the pink one is knit to 48sts (7 rows of plain knitting in the middle). As you can see, just one more set of increases makes quite a difference in size. The peach and purplish balls are knit on size 5 needles…not that big a size difference, IMHO.