Saturday, May 28

Baseball!

For those of you who are unaware: It's baseball season!!!  There are a few things I love about baseball.  One, it's a fairly straight forward game.  Two, I actually understand all that's going on.  Three, it's knitter friendly.  In late March, I joined my father and younger brother at a game right here in the DC area.  The Twins, my dad's team and one that I enjoy watching immensely, played the Orioles in Baltimore.  The best part, they won!  Yes, I took my knitting.  The little Knitpickers bag was just perfect for carrying my socks and my phone.  It also did double duty as a ticket display so I didn't have to keep pulling it out every time we reached a check point.  I finished the gusset on the first sock on the several-hour-long drive up to Baltimore (oh the joys of rush hour).  In spite of a very exciting game, I still managed to finish the first heel flap during the game and the gusset section on the second sock.  My own little Stitch 'n' Pitch.  As you can see we had great seats, just on the third base side of home plate.  We were on one of the upper levels and took a break just before the game started to grab a surprisingly good supper from one of the restaurants in the stadium.  Our seats also seemed like a prime flyball-zone.  Two were close enough that the guys had a shot at getting them.  So much fun!

After the game, I kind of stalled on my socks.  The gusset portion is rather tedious.  Fortunately, the heel flap is quick and easy, with just enough of a pattern to keep me interested.  Since then, I feel like my socks have been flying, though when I look at them they don't look nearly long enough yet.  I crunched some numbers and figured out the increases needed in my gage to turn the socks into knee-highs.  I'm even replicating part of the pattern in the increase portion of the sock.  Honestly, with such a pretty pattern, I could not resist.  Especially since I'm using stash yarn that I know I have enough of.  So, the increased are coming along and every now and then I'll try the socks on just to check.  They are snug without being too tight.  I'm looking forward to the finished product.

In non-craft related news, I am now employed!  The craft repercussions are two-fold.  First, I will have less time to work on any projects.  This was expected and though a little disappointing, an acceptable compromise.  The second side-effect was unexpected, more ideas!  I'm starting to think I may need a better way to record all my project thoughts.  Loose sheets of graph paper don't seem to be working as well when you have so many different project.  They tend to get mixed up.  Or stashed in a variety of places when the house gets cleaned.  Does anyone have suggestions for ways to organize projects that consist of multiple pages of doodles and notes?  Please leave a note in the comments!