This Blog Suspended Due to Postseason Madness

I would like to apologize for my absence in the last few days. I would also like to apologize for my utter lie in the title of this post. I have every intention of blogging, I just might do it from my parents’ house, while parked in front of their big screen. And I might just talk about baseball.

Of course, I’m not just sitting around while the baseball goes on, I’m also making stuff and doing my nails in elaborate fashion. Lemme show you (in a roundabout fashion, by linking to them on instagram, because the WordPress App isn’t letting me upload pictures)
“Galaxy Nails,” they look like nebulas, but I assume something is wrong with the delightfully alliterative Nebula Nails, so I’ll compromise and call them Cosmic Nails.

It’s not baseball without crafting and the unrivaled craft of this postseason is finger stripe gloves, a tribute to the only issue I have with Dick Grayson’s return to his Nightwing persona: his new costume’s lack of finger stripes. I’ll make a tutorial on these soon, but I haven’t perfected the process yet.

I’m gonna go bite off my elaborate nail polish waiting for the Tigers to defeat evil. Byes!

How much good can Baseball do?

I promise, I will write about something other than Baseball the next time I blog.  This continues from the last post though, so bear with me (note that I really love Baseball, so until October throws me into the depths of despair it’ll show up).

When last we left our heroine (me) her baseball knitting was a plain sock that looked like this:

Immediately following that post the intrepid knitter headed to the last home opener at the Metrodome.  Upon reaching the stadium she knit on her sock, enjoyed the view from center field, watched the fastest man in baseball drop a two run homer 30 yards in front of her, and suffered through a devistating loss for the Minnesota Twins.  Upon reaching home her sock looked like this:

Clear progress, though not as much as the night before.  However, on Sunday I was in the lounge watching on TV whereas on Monday I was at the stadium.  When I’m at the game I find that I make less progress because I keep doing things like talking with other people, cheering, eating, the wave, and enjoying the view.  Still, I made clear progress and my sock is getting closer and closer to becoming the second of a pair.  So there, conclusive proof that baseball time is great knitting time.  I’d go into the other multitudinous virtues of Baseball (common topic for conversation with most American males, excitement, drama, general kick assness) but to my fellow knitters out there “three hours of minimally interrupted knitting time” really beats any other reason.

On the topic of my dearest, darling Minnesota Twins, well, I’m not sure what to think.  We’re down two catchers, both of whom are incredibly useful bats as well.  The Twins have struggled with run production for the last couple of seasons and it pains me to see pitchers like Nick Blackburn and Glen Perkins get the L when they only let in one run.  I’m of the opinion that better discipline at the plate would fix a lot of the Twins scoring problems, but you could easily make the case for more power or a stronger bullpen.  I can’t wait to see what happens as the team settles into the regular season, especially once Joe Mauer returns to his rightful spot behind Home Plate.  I would also like to note how delighted I am by Carlos Gomez’s improvement since last year. I love watching him play (he moves so beautifully) so I’m happy when he gets more time on the field.

Baseball Season is Knitting Season

Baseball season has arrived at last.  The four solid weeks reading Keats hasn’t given me the descriptive poewrs to express how good it feels to have the sounds of a Mets/Reds or a Nationals/Marlin’s game floating out of my speakers (from the MLB iPod app, Game Day Audio FTW).  My family has always been big baseball fans, a situation that has only gotten worse as time has gone on.  It’s gotten so bad that we made a pilgrimage to the Baseball Hall of Fame over Thanksgiving (I lost my camera right after that and I therefore have none of the pictures I took that day or over the whole break)

I would blame the increase of baseball watching on my parents need to keep themselves entertained as my sisters and I grow up and move out, but that would only be a half-truth.  In reality, Mom and I realized that during a Baseball game we can knit, basically uninterrupted, for three hours.

You might think, how much of a difference could three hours of knitting really make, you guys knit all the time anyway.

I could argue with those thinkers for a thousand or more words, but I’ve got a picture that’ll do just fine.

This is my mindless knitting, a sock in S.R. Kertzer On Your Toes 4 Ply.  I’ve been working on this on and off since Christmas, I finished this sock over Interim break when I did almost nothing except for sit on the deck of the cruise ship, knit, and listen to all 4 Twilight audiobooks (Shannon Okey expressed worry over my burgeoning addiction, but I’m fine, really, I’m not addicted to the Sparkle!crack at all *twitch*).  Now during Frbruary and March I knit the toe and the first few increases on the instep (which I really should have taken pictures of when I updated Ravelry yesterday), and then yesterday the Baseball season started.

I did most of the instep and all of the heel turn while I watched the Braves beat up on the Phillies.  That is more progress than I’ve made, literally in months and it’s no mistake that it happened on the first day of Baseball season.  Check out the side view for a better idea of how much I knit.

There is such a perfect chemistry between Baseball and knitting.  If you aren’t watching every second, you might miss some awesome things (my favorite/what I always miss are double plays), but you can certainly follow the game while knitting.  I, obviously, find the expereience pretty entertaining and if the proliferation of Stitch n’ Pitch events throughout the country is any indication I’m not the only knitter that thinks that (the site appears to be down right now, so I think we may have crashed it).

Baseball is a very important part of my life, and I’m so very glad to have it back, it feels like I’ve just put on new glasses and I can really see again (I just got new glasses, remind me to show you guys).  While I’ve been writing this post I’ve listened to the Mets beat the Reds and the Nationals give up 6 runs to the Marlins, looks like they’re headed to their usual place, “First in War, First in Peace, last in the National League”.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the Twins home opener (the last in the Metrodome).  Go Twins!