i’m working what i have been referring to as “the obligatory felted noro kureyon bag.” it’s nearly done; i’m just finishing up some straps on the front (ostensibly to hold it closed but, really, mostly just there to let the d-rings jingle cheerfully). ironically, i had thought — foolishly! — i might be able to complete the bag with two balls of yarn (i had gotten to the point where i was chiding myself for winding all three skeins i had up on the ball winder, because oh noes, what if the yarn gets separated from the ballband in the stash?!?!), but fate laughs in the face of knitters who think they have enough yarn, and as it is, i’ve left the unfinished shoulder strap hanging off the yarn from the tiny remainder of the third ball, while i knit the front straps slaving to yarn-conservation. (worst case scenario: i frog the entire strap and do it up in only six stitches’ width instead of the eight it has now, but, oh god, it’s sooo booring, i don’t wanna!) i had been hoping to make the strap extra long so i could sew it to a closed buckle thingy and make it adjustable, but … fate laughed at me a lot and now i’m just hoping i have enough yarn to sew the $%^& strap on at all.

i actually started this project to take with me to stitch ‘n pitch at sox park, which was last saturday, 26 april, vs. the twins. it was not a particularly promising day for baseball as i set out for the park that day: it was overcast (the sort of “actively threatening” overcast that had me wisely packing a waterproof windbreaker as well as my knitting), and indeed, just as i stepped off the red line at 35th St, the heavens opened above us and all those ball fans without arks (or jackets) were left scrambling for cover. this was, actually, not a very nice thing to have happen to an extremely crowded el platform. traffic effectively stopped flowing toward the exits at all, as half the crowd stopped to put on ponchos or get out umbrellas, and the other half just stopped, period. i put on my own jacket, over my #14 jersey and my backpack o’knitting (which i am sure gave me the look of a pregnant woman whose head was on backwards, but whatever… these are the sacrifices i make for my guys). finally, the rain-protected-against crowd weaseled around the petrified-by-the-strange-water-falling-from-the-sky crowd and we made it up to street level, and i walked over to meet folks at the park. as soon as we got our tickets, the rain stopped. hooray! we could knit after all! since we got our tickets as part of the official SnP promotion, we got goodie bags. inside the goodie bags were 10″ clover bamboo #17 needles (holy cow, #17s? well, i can honestly say i didn’t have any of those already!), which i noted the other day are selling at joann fabrics for like $13 a set. nice. we also got skeins of yarn from lorna’s laces (enough for a set of baby booties, pattern included), and samples of yarn.com’s new line, in either white or black. really, they were rather nice goodie bags. i’m a little sad i only conned one of my companions out of his bag as well as mine! so here’s a story. since i was in attendance with three fellow sox-fan friends, all non-knitters, i was teasing them that they would have to hold my yarn for me at the game to go incognito in the knitter section. (and it actually was the knitter section. at one point, Southpaw (can i just say? all these white sox games i’ve gone to over the years and it never occured to me to ask what the name of what i referred to as “the crazy green fluffy thing that i have no idea what the hell it has to do with white sox baseball” was? if it hadn’t been for bingo, i might never have known this vital detail) was wandering around the section with the ginormous #17 needles pretending to knit. they put knitters up on the jumbotron. later on, taking the el home from the game, i pulled out my knitting and was knitting (still wearing paulie konerko’s name and number, natch) while waiting for an o’hare train at jackson and someone asked me if i was the person that was on the jumbotron, and was even more confused/impressed when i said that no, it wasn’t me, but there were lots and lots of us knitting in the stands. i had to explain it was a promotion. otherwise who knows what she would have thought, that it was some sort of knitter revolution fomenting dissent under cover of wool up in section 507.) anyways — does anyone even remember how this paragraph started out? i don’t — anyways, in response to this teasing, j. responded that he wanted me to knit him a beer cosy for the game. the man obviously knows few knitters because he otherwise he would have known that a beer cosy would be (a) fast, (b) easy, and (c) totally *done* as soon as he suggested it. needless to say, i knitted a beer cosy for him, using a roman lace stitch (um, k1, yo, k2tog; k back; k2, *yo, k2tog, k1, rep fr * to end), out of my seemingly-endless scratch red heart acrylic. (shown here in an authentic souveneir soda cup!!!!, as i didn’t have any beer cups at home. man, i sure am glad a paid that $5 for a pepsi, ‘cos, dude, holographic cup with pictures of the world series trophy! but i digress. beer cosy!) unfortunately, i was so “damn, i need to bring a jacket to the game” that i ran out of the house and forgot it. really this just means i need to go see another game with j. before this season ends so i can give it to him. anyways. there were other knitting hijinks. i didn’t actually get much done on the bag in the stands; i was too preoccupied by watching the white sox stink, rally, and eventually lose in 11 innings. at one point there was some sustained anger at the good mr. contreras, which resulted in trying to teach b. to knit using those #17s and the sport-weight free yarn (after winding one skein into a center pull ball which i wound too tight and it wouldn’t center pull… alas). impromptu knit camp was a failure. but b. did take his goodie bag home with him so perhaps there is hope (maybe if i fetch him some proper sized needles…) i also learned an important lesson with regard to my attention span: i can do any two of knit, watch a baseball game, or carry on a conversation, but not all three. check this out: can you spot the mistake? yeah, i dropped a stitch. which i did not realize until i was done with the flap. actually, i dropped two — very symmetrically, the other dropped stitch was on the other side of the flap in approximately the same distance from the edge, at about the same row (give or take the dropped-ness of the stitch). i picked up my trusty crochet hook and picked it all the way back up to the top, but then those two columns of stitches were both so tight they basically folded the flap into right angles at each column, so i dropped the stitches back down to about the same spot, and anchored them with yarn, which i later wove back in. hey, it’s gonna be felted anyways, i don’t have to care that much. still, i am amused at dropping two stitches so symmetrically.
okay. i am watching the sox play the bosox, and — kim, i know you’re reading this, since it’s a knitting post — you guys traded coco crisp to the red sox??? what? dude, have i just not been paying attention? well, i guess at least you’ve still got sizemore for the funny-name sweepstakes…
anyways, i had hoped to get the bag done in time to slip it in as the last load of laundry day today, but alas!, i slacked and did not finish the strap (possibly due to pausing every four rows or so to stretch it out and guess about felt shrinkage and fret about if i should quit it or continue it), and so it’s not done. i might finish it this evening, if i can ever get off my ass and finish this blog post. yep. a few other notes. i picked up a norwegian knitting thimble the other day at an LYS which is going out of business, because i have always had trouble knitting with just the yarn looped over my finger, and so i pick it up and throw it. the thimble has two little wire loops for threading yarn through, and i think it’s for doing fair isle, but it works out marvellously well with just one yarn, for me. it sped up my stockinette, a lot. it’s a little wonky for purling, the way i’ve been wearing it, but since the noro bag is nearly all stockinette (on circs) it was nice. i’m impressed. i’m totally going to keep on wearing it, except maybe for bulky or wacky yarns. and, i can’t decide whether to sign up for either livejournal secret pal 3, or secret pal 9. my lj sp2 experience has been kind of a bust: my pal sent me my first goodie box — which was awesome — but then i never heard from her again. i contacted the mods and they assigned me an angel to step in, but i haven’t gotten an email or anything so i’m sort of confused. and my own spoilee never posted anything about her second box, which made me somewhat sad because i was already feeling ditched (and i had gone to some effort to make that a neat gift box, driving way the hell out into suburbia to shop for some of the things in it, etc.). i hope she liked it. i dunno if she’ll post about the third goodie box or not. i hope so. :/ anyways, so now i am sort of leery of LJ SP3, in case it dashes my hopes as well. i was thinking about doing SP9 instead. i dunno. i haven’t really decided. i had a lot of fun coming up with things i could do for my SP and i would like to think i wouldn’t get ditched again, but it was just, y’know, 1/2 disappointment thus far with a best case scenario of 1/3 disappointment. still, i’d like to spoil someone, because that part was fun. i thought maybe i’d just volunteer to be an angel instead, but that’s sort of boring since you’re not really participating unless someone gets ditched. i have a little more time to decide, so we shall see. anyways. gotta hit the post office tomorrow to drop some stuff in the mail, goodie boxes for various folks. actually i have one more that isn’t boxed up yet, because the stupid boxes i got at staples the other day are too frigging small. so now i have to go back by staples and get more mailing boxes, then make another trip to the post office. ah well. life could be worse. i could not be sending random knitty presents to people. anyways. i am TOTALLY going to finish that freaking noro bag. so if you’ll excuse me…