The Sweatshop of Love Blog

And then, magically, my summer in Minneapolis was over. It hardly feels like three months ago that I got here, and here I’m already packing up to leave. But before I head back to Chicago Friday, we knew we had to have the weekend to end all weekends. And we surely did, starting Friday with a trip to Target Field.

WAAAAAAAAY Up THERE!

See those people WAY up at the top there? That is where we usually sit. But Friday? Ohh no! Friday PT got CHAMPIONS CLUB tickets for the game, which meant that we got all you can eat and drink free food, and our view for the game was this:

WHOA!

I was so happy during this game tears were shed. The food was amazing, getting to drink all I wanted to was amazing, not waiting in line to pee was amazing! But the baseball. It was RIGHT THERE! It was almost scary how close we were.

Ohh HOLLA!

And then there was the fair. This is me, trying to eat a deep fried Reeses Peanut Butter Cup covered in powdered sugar. Because there isn’t enough sugar on the inside of that thing that it needed more. And yeah. It was good. Because EVERYTHING IS AMAZING AT THE FAIR!

Beer on a Stick!

This is my third Minnesota State Fair, and I think ever time gets better. It’s Tuesday and I’m still recovering from this trip. It’s just that glorious.

Bunny!

I love that I take the same pictures every year. In 2009 it was food, bunnies, crop art, and baby sheep. In 2010 it was food, baby sheep, and crop art.

Baby Sheep!

This year is shaping up to be food, bunnies, baby sheep, and crop art again!

Crop Art!

And, of course, the underwhelming shots of knitting.

Knitting, Just Hanging Around

We were at the fair for 11 hours, so it’s really no wonder that I’m still recovering. I could barely walk yesterday! I’m already excited for next year.

And I’m already excited to come back to Minneapolis! I kinda love this place. I’m Chicago bound Friday, which means I’m frantically packing up my life and finishing all my unfinished projects before I’ll be away from them. Why does leaving always sneak up on me?!

But we went out with a bang, Minnesota. And those 5 deep fried pounds around my middle will be with me for a long time.

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.

I mailed off my computer to be fixed yesterday after, of course, some complications. And while I wait for Dell to tell me that they have to wipe everything off my computer to fix it (I know it’s coming, and of course I don’t have anything backed up), I’m dealing with being computer-less by knitting a TON and getting as much computer work in while I’m at my part time job as I can. Including writing this post, but excluding all of these things:

The Top 6 Things I’m Missing While My Computer is Broken

(in order of importance)

1. Baseball

Yes, the Tigers are out of it, but I still love to watch them. I’ve got the MLB.TV package where I can watch all the games, and I love it, and I miss my team. And I’ve gotten to the point where I want the Minnesota Twins to win the World Series, so I’ve got to start studying up and getting ready for the playoffs.

2. Fantasy Football Stat Tracker

So. I’m way into fantasy football. I like to stare at my team and my opponent’s team and get live point updates so I know who to scream at and which channel to watch to get more live coverage of the games involving the players I need to step it up/crash and burn. I’ve got it on my phone but it doesn’t live update. I HAVE TO CLICK REFRESH EVERY 30 SECONDS!

3. Video Chatting with PT

With PT still in NYC we like to have video chat dinner dates, and be on video chat while we watch football so it’s like we are watching it together. It’s kinda adorable. And I miss it. Though I miss it less than I miss baseball and my fantasy football stat tracker. PT is fine with the balance he has struck. Kinda.

4. Hulu

ALL of my shows are starting back up, ok? It’s hard to know there are new episodes of Hell’s Kitchen, The Biggest Loser, Project Runway, The Office, 30 Rock, and Amazing Race (and those are just the not-so-embarrassing ones) out there in the world that are unavailable to me.

5. Feeling Organized

I’ve got a googledoc file for everything. To do lists for everything from things I need to do today to things I need to do for the DIY Trunk Show that isn’t until November. Lists of blog ideas and pattern ideas and newsletters to update and all this little stuff I have access to all day every day because when I think of something to add to one of those lists I just pop open the file and write it down.

Now I’m carrying around a notebook with lists of lists and then bullet points for each list. It looks insane. It makes me think my system that works must be insane because it just does not work on paper. And it makes me feel insane, and that it’s not good enough that I’m writing things down on paper because what if I lose the paper? I still have to remember all the things I’m writing down just in case the paper blows away or gets eaten by a dog.

6. Feeling Connected

I cannot keep up with facebook, I cannot keep up with my reader, and I cannot keep up with twitter. I miss my blogs and my girlz on twitter. I’ve found that I can do without facebook (if not for my Sweatshop facebook page and the facebook group for my fantasy football league I would probably take this time to just delete it, but, alas, I’m networking, just ignoring other people).

But I’ve constantly got the feeling that I’m missing everything important that is happening in the world.

Honestly, it’s a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. I got a HUGE box of yarn in the mail this week that I’m excited about knitting up into holiday presents, so I’ve got things to do that make me feel like I’m still being productive.

Would I like to be working on patterns that I want to release soon? Absolutely. Will this probably delay their release? Absolutely. But I’m alive. I’ve got two legs and two arms and everyone I love is safe and happy and healthy. So can I deal with refreshing my fantasy football stats every 30 seconds for 12 hours on Sunday?

Yes. Yes I can.

I’m back home in Chicago gearing up for the Renegade Craft Fair this weekend and going through pictures of the last two legs of my trip. You want to see the happiest boy in the whole entire world?

PT at Target Field

That would be PT, a boy who grew up watching indoor baseball at the hellhole of a Metrodome we saw last year but is seeing Target Field, the new ballpark where the Minnesota Twins now play, for the first time.

TARGET FIELD Y'ALL!

This trip included two baseball games, one at Yankee Stadium and one here at Target Field, and I can’t express enough how much more I enjoyed my time at Target Field than at Yankee Stadium.

Target Field is fun. It’s beautiful and you can feel how excited everyone is to be outside watching baseball, which is something the rest of us take for granted. Twins fans are just happy people watching baseball. They are tickled pink that their team is in the race but I’m pretty sure they would be just as excited if they had the worst team in baseball. They love everyone. Everyone gets cheered on, every ball could go out, every out is huge, every moment is awesome, and that is just a fun way to watch baseball.

PT is PUMPED for Sausage

And, when you are with someone having the best time of their life, you just gotta get on board. PT looked like this the entire time. Seriously. But so did everyone!

Target Field and Minneapolis

It’s beautiful and fun and comfortable and their food is reasonably priced and they’ve got these fancy bars all over the stadium that are accessible to everyone.

The Tigers lost in extra innings. It was a rough game, but I still had a great time. THAT is how amazing Target Field is!

So, Yankees, I have no idea what you did with that $1.4 billion, but you should have built Target Field in the Bronx and saved yourself $855,000,000. That is right, Yankee Stadium cost EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS more than Target Field. I can’t comprehend how much money that actually is, but that is a lot of zeros for something to have cost more than something else.

If you find yourself in Minneapolis you should get yourself to Target Field. If you find yourself in the Bronx you should get on a plane, fly to Minnesota, and get yourself to Target Field. It will cost you less than going to see the Yankees.

Problems

I mentioned this weekend that, worst case scenario, my Tigers and PT’s Twins would be facing off in a one game playoff to be the champions of the division.

Worst Case Scenario. Hi. How are you? Oh, you are taking place TODAY AT 4:07?!

This is only the 9th time in the history of baseball that a game 163 was required to see who was going to the playoffs. So yeah, it’s kind of a big deal.

And the Tigers have a lot going against them:

1. It’s at the Metrodome. Remember the Metrodome? That place sucks. And it will be filled with screaming Twins fans.

2. The Tigers have the worst road record in baseball.

3. The Twins have won 16 of the last 20 games to tie the Tigers and force this tiebreaker. That’s a lot, and constitutes being on a roll.

I could be here all day listing reasons why the Tigers are going to lose this game. But do I think they are going to lose? No. Well, maybe. GAH! I don’t know, ok?! I’m going to watch this game, and I’m going to be yelling to myself, and hope hope hoping they win, and that is all I can do.

If the Tigers win, the Twins lose, and PT is very sad. If the Tigers lose, the Twins win, and I’m going to be very sad. Either way, I’m glad we don’t have to watch this game together.

Can a relationship survive game 163? Has it ever been done? I’m glad this is almost over.  It’s been a rough ride.