The Sweatshop of Love Blog

And just like that it’s October. I’m late with this revelation, too, because I’ve been caught up in postseason baseball, spending the first part of the week in Detroit watching the Tigers split their home games against the Yankees, and then scrambling to catching up.

TIGERS!

So I have not been doing very much knitting. Lots of fighting about baseball, reading about baseball, freaking out about baseball. Baseball!

Yoda Hat

I’d give anything to blow off my work this afternoon and work on the one project I’ve got on my needles right now: FELTED YODA HAT!

When Finished...

My nephew Baby Nolan is going to rock this Yoda Hat for Halloween this year, which means only one thing for my new baby niece Ryenn!

Princess Leia Hair!

Yoda and Princess Leia? It doesn’t get much cuter than that, does it? Hopefully I’ll have Yoda’s ears and Leia’s hair finished soon so I can get them in the mail to my sister in law Emily (who is now on twitter AND etsy, by the way) very soon.

I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do for my own costume. With Waldo and a Cupcake off the market, I’m coming up short in the idea department. Any suggestions?!

Did I go to The Baseball Hall of Fame last week with the intention of writing a blog post about knitting? Absolutely not. But when you love two very different things, like baseball and knitting, you tend to freak out when those things unexpectedly overlap.

So fair warning: this is a real freak out baseball knitting love fest.

New York Giants Warm Up Sweater

The Baseball Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown NY – a tiny town in the middle of the state that just happened to fall not too far out of our way between Boston and the cottage we were driving to last weekend. We couldn’t NOT make it happen!

At the start of The Baseball Hall of Fame it’s a lot of memorabilia from the few baseball teams that have been around since the late 1800s. The New York Giants, who didn’t move to San Fransisco until 1958, were one of those original teams, so the start of the museum was Giants-heavy, including this spectacular knit warm up sweater, which still looked to be in pretty awesome shape considering it has to be around 80 years old.

Yankees Warm Up Sweater

This Yankee warm up sweater from 1925 hasn’t held up as well but looks very hand knit, doesn’t it? The way the sleeves and pockets are set in? There was no information on either sweater about their origins, and I couldn’t find any information about the history of hand knits in baseball online.

Knit Stockings

There were tons of knit stockings from every early team displayed, including these White Sox stockings from 1917.

Babe Ruth Mini-Tapestry

Though not knitted, this mini-tapestry of Babe Ruth caught my eye. Ray Masterson creates these tiny baseball tapestries with 1,200 stitches per square inch. He started making them to pass the time during a 15 year prison sentence! He’s got a crazy story and is a great example of baseball crafting.

Embroidered Jerseys

The elaborate embroidered jerseys everyone had in the early baseball days were all amazing. None were as detailed as the early St Louis Cardinals jerseys. Again, I couldn’t find any information on the history of the embroidery on the jerseys. In my next life I’m going to be a hand crafted baseball historian.

Once you walked up through the 1950s, though, most of the knitwear disappeared. Which makes sense! I can’t imagine anyone playing baseball in knits. Its a summer sport! I bet all the players were excited to see the back side of knitted garments.

Hand Knit Socks!

THEN toward the end of the museum I came across these hand knit socks made by Meredith Wills, who I FOUND ON RAVELRY and sent a gushing HOLYSHITYOUAREAMAZING message. Because this knitter is in the freaking Baseball Hall of Fame! For knitting! I immediately put this sock pattern in my queue, momentarily forgetting how much I hate colorwork and mostly seriously dislike sock knitting.

Size 0 needles. I would have to frame them. Or, I would have to frame one of them because if I ever cast these on there would be no way I could finish one, much less TWO! Gah. We can dream.

In my baseball knitting research I did come across knitting patterns for baseball warm up sweaters available on ebay! Those are more my speed.

The Tigers!

My pictures weren’t all knitting related. I did geek out over my Tigers a LOT. And PT geeked out over the Twins. We were both geeking hard core from start to finish.

RIP Harmon

It was basically the best time ever. Baseball has such an amazing, rich, long history that I just want to suck up through my pores. As much as it hurts me I keep coming back, and will for the rest of my life. And all that love also involving knitting?! Tears were shed. Tears were shed.

Needless to say, if you ever find yourself driving around New York state, make your way to The Baseball Hall of Fame. If not for a love of baseball, do it for a love of the history of knitting. And bring me with you! I’d go again in a heartbeat.

Luckily the question today for Knit and Crochet Blog Week was lame, because today is the happiest day of the year! OPENING DAY! I can’t possibly talk about anything but baseball! BASEBALL!

Now, I realize that not everyone feels this way about baseball. It’s hard to explain my love for baseball to people who don’t love baseball. Specifically people who don’t love baseball and are reading a knitting blog. But I’m home in Michigan this week with Baby Nolan and my mom’s new pug puppy, Otis, and I might have figured out a good way of explaining it.

Me, on opening day (today), watching the first pitch, knowing that there are like SEVEN MONTHS of baseball ahead of me, is like you looking at these pictures.

Baby Nolan LOVES the Camera

Baby Nolan LOVES Barley

Barley LOVES Baby Nolan

Otis LOVES Looking Cute

Baby Nolan LOVES Sleeping

So Does Otis

So, please excuse me. I’ve got opening day baseball to watch. It’s like you excusing yourself to watch BABIES PLAY WITH PUPPIES!

BABIES PLAYING WITH PUPPIES = Opening Day Baseball.

If I die, though, from the joy of holding a baby playing with a puppy while watching opening day baseball, know I died happy, and that I loved you.

OOHHhhhhh PIECE OF SHIT WEEKEND! Why?! WHY?!

It comes every year, and every year I try to prepare for it but I know. I KNOW! It will suck, and my heart will be empty, and there will be no light or joy in the world on THIS WEEKEND, no matter what I do.

When baseball season ends you fill the void with football. The seasons overlap, so while you don’t have a football game every day like you have with baseball, you have fantasy football to plan, so it’s ok.

But when football ends YOU HAVE NOTHING. You have cold, cold winter and no football to be excited about. And while, yes, I have taken more of an interest in basketball this year than I have in previous years, it’s no replacement.

Spring training starts in 17 days. It’s a month till March Madness.

And so, the weekend between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl is the worst weekend of the year. The first weekend you have nothing.

LOTR - EXTENDED EDITION!

Nothing except Lord of the Rings Extended Versions! I save these for this weekend. That is a solid 10 hours of quality entertainment, much like a day with 3 football games.

HORATIO!

And Horatio Hornblower as a back up! There are 8 parts to this miniseries and that has bound to keep my mind off my broken, empty heart.

I’ve also got craft projects!

Tshirt Painting Supplies

I finally made it the nearly 6 miles to Michael’s yesterday to pick up a few things for projects I’ve been wanting to tackle. My friend Miss Jeanna pointed me in this direction a few weeks ago and I haven’t been able to get them out of my mind, so tshirts need to happen!

Needlepoint Supplies

And y’all know my love/hate relationship with needlepoint, but I got the cutest idea for some food needlepoint art for my kitchen and just need to make it happen. And I haven’t needlepointed in 8 months so I can’t remember how much I hate it.

Beatnik and Pudge

I’ve also got about an inch left to knit on my Beatnik to get to this week’s goal of getting to the sleeve separation.

PUDGE GET OUT OF THE SHOT!

How sweet is this sweater looking so far?!

So, worst weekend of the year, I’m ready for you with all I’ve got: Crafts, LOTR, and Horatio Hornblower.

Yes, that is all I’ve got to fight you with. Nerdery.

I drive my students (and, I’m sure, my twitter followers) crazy talking about football. Or, not crazy, but I get a lot of, ‘Ohh Allyson!’-s. Especially during my Sunday morning Holiday Present Prep class. The class is scheduled from 10-12, and at noon sharp I start checking fantasy stats on my phone.

My students, at least, are very polite. They pretend to be interested when I go on about injuries and favorable match ups. I’ll be knitting away, chatting about all my players on the injury reports and how serious they are. Then I’ll look up and see a bunch of smiling, nodding knitters.

Which is what I like to see! But, you know, when I’m instructing knitting, not just because they have no idea what I’m talking about.

1997 Rose Bowl Win

I started loving football in 1997 when the University of Michigan Wolverines won the Rose Bowl. I was 13. It was awesome.

Detroit Lions Sadface

At the same time I became a Detroit Lions fan. This has not gone as well. And UofM has fallen pretty far over the past 13 years. I stand by them both, though. In fact, the worse they are the more hard core of a fan I am. I’m under no illusion that they are good, but they are my teams, and I will be a fan till I die. Or until Detroit implodes. Even then I’ll be the crazy old lady wearing old Detroit Lions tshirts and screaming at kids who ask me what Detroit is.

I’m not just a fan of my teams. I’m a FOOTBALL FAN! I love it all. I watch every televised college game on Saturdays and every televised professional game on Sundays.

I yell. A lot. My biggest pet peeve? A blow 2 minute drill. Not just a football pet peeve. My biggest pet peeve in life. I’m not an angry person. When I start to get angry in life I just start crying. When there is a holding call that brings back a 40 yard carry I LOSE MY FREAKING MIND.

So you can imagine how excited I was when a couple of my high school friends wanted to start an all girl’s fantasy football league. I’ve played fantasy football before with boys, but boys just turn into dicks. Last year one of these boys kept calling me ugly and stupid because I was beating him. Which I’m not. But it still kind of hurt.

Girl’s fantasy football is going much better. I get made fun of for knitting and winning, which I do both of all the time! I’m a naturally competitive person so I waste an irrational amount of time reading injury reports and probable match up stats. I mean, IRRATIONAL, especially considering that winning gets me $70.

Clearly it isn’t about the money. It’s about me needing to kick all these other girl’s asses.

‘Dirty Dancing is on,’ Rachel said this morning at the gym, pointing at oh so young and adorable Patric Swayze on her TV.

‘Yeah I’ve got to watch this,’ I responded, never taking my eyes of Sports Center. ‘I need to double check the status of my fantasy starters.’

‘You are such a boy,’ she said. ‘And sometimes I have no idea what you are talking about.’

Yeah, that is about right. I even get that with boys, which pisses me off because they should know! I know! Why don’t they know? I mean, I know, and I knit.

I KNIT FOR CHRISTS SAKE!

There are 10 girls in my league and I’m currently in 2nd place. I’m doing awesome! I’ve got Chris Johnson and Calvin Johnson and Percy Harvin and LeSean McCoy…

Jason Hanson FOR LIFE!

AND JASON HANSON! The 40 year old kicker for the Lions since 1992. My team is actually named Hanson4life. My love of Jason Hanson has been a joke forever, but the real joke here is that he is practically carrying my fantasy team! On any given week he will score more points for me that my wide receivers.

Man, I would hate me if I had to play me.

Luckily, I don’t have to play me! I am me! Football loving knitter that I am. And hopefully I continue kicking ass or things around here are going to get WAY angrier.