Baseball, Hot Dogs, and Knitting

If it weren't for allergies, this would be my favorite time of year.

Grandson #1 is almost halfway through Little League Baseball and this grandma goes to as many games as she can. So far, I have only missed one game due to cheerleader tryouts. His team is tied for first place. So what if there are only four team in his league! The boys play hard and with every game there is improvement. The last game they finally got the idea of "tag him".

Baseball is also on TV several evenings over the week. My husband and I are Cincinnati Reds fans so we watch them whenever they are on TV. There is also a minor league team here that we like to watch. We try to go to a game at least once a month. The stadium is great, ticket prices reasonable, no bad seats, delicious hot dogs, and we always have a good time.

So what does all this have to do with crochet/knitting? It's a funny thing. I can crochet or knit while watching baseball on TV, but I can't if I am watching live. The atmosphere at a home game, even if watching eight-year-olds, is fascinating. I am looking everywhere and noticing everything from the right fielder talking to his family in the stands and how the umpire calls strikes, to the children dancing to the music and the bald-headed man sitting in the stands behind the dugout whose head gets redder as the game progresses. Needless to say, I don't get a lot of needlework done.

On my needles now is the cardigan knit along I mentioned in the previous post. So far I have learned how to knit a sweater in the round, knitting sleeves using the magic loop, provisional cast-on so that the hem can be knitted in, and short rows using wrap and turn. I am now ready to steek.

By the way, the red knitted coat is on hiatus. The fronts did not come out right and it is definitely an error in the pattern. I needed to get away from it before I got angry enough to throw it away. After I finish the cardigan, I will be ready to frog the fronts, figure out what I need to do, and finish it.

What I am reading:
The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, from the podcast CraftLit
Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, from the podcast Forgotten Classics
Roots, by Alex Haley, from Audible.com
David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, from Librivox
Death by Darjeeling (A Tea Shop Mystery), by Laura Childs