Sports and Knitting

How much more unrelated could you have two activities be?

Stitch and Pitch
New reader Glenda sent me this interesting little ditty:

I live just outside the Seattle area. Last week the Seattle Mariners hosted their first "Stitch and Pitch" night. The first ball that was thrown out was thrown by a yarn shop owner and was, what else? a ball of yarn. Tickets were sold at local yarn shops and they thought they'd sell about 200. They sold 1200. The evening was a big success, other than the fact that the Mariners played pretty badly that night. A lot of the local yarn shops put together a little street fair at the back of the stadium where you could buy yarn, needles and patterns. It was great fun to sit with 1200 of my knitting "peeps", needles all clicking away. Difficult to do the wave, but that's the only drawback.

I have to admit, that while I think baseball on t.v. can be painfully boring to watch, that a trip to the local baseball field is an interesting event that includes lots of other things to watch besides the game, and fun food. Add knitting to that concoction, and I'm there.

Quilting - Big Idiot
Some men have difficulty following instructions. I seem to be one of them.

After completing the first nine-block, I had this nagging thought that the larger squares didn't look as rounded as I had expected. Did I read the instructions? Uh...no.

Then after I completed the second nine-block, Thaddeus asked innocently if the patterned fabric wasn't supposed to look more round. I assured him that the optical illusion of a "snowball" didn't occure until the quilt was much bigger. Did I read the pattern? That would be, no.

Then Liza sends me an e-mail to ask if I'm using the same proportions as are in the pattern (5.5" for the large squares and 1.75" for the smaller squares). Again, the answer was, no.

So now I have the makings for two small pillows.

Cheryl asks, "How big is the quilt going to be when finished? and are you going to hand quilt it?? Are you using cotton batting??"

The quilt will be approximately king size so that it will comfortably fit our queen size bed. I will not be doing the actual quilting...I plan on sending it away to have someone with sewing talent and proper quilting equipment do this part for me. I'm not sure what kind of batting I will use...that's where I rely on the experts, like Liza.

Have you pre-ordered the new book yet?

Readers' Comments/Questions
Franklin asks, "How glad am I that my grandmother decided she didn't care for the Internet and so stopped reading this blog?"

Come now Franklin...the woman is as sharp as a tack (not to mention a keen eye when it comes to appreciating hand-sewn zippers). Do you think she hadn't already determined what we mentioned in comments? Hmmm?