the sweater i knit in a day

It must have been last summer that I found the yarn at a Smiley's sale. Who could resist buying a whole bag of Rowan Biggy Print for $6 - a yarn that normally goes for over $10 a skein in stores? I'd used some in college to make hats, and loved the colors, but it was too expensive to become a favorite yarn. Smiley's only had a solid-colored bright pink, not my favorite, but I bought two bags with the vague notion of making a sweater.

An extensive Ravelry search for patterns for patterns was the next step. I wasn't interested in a solidly stockinette sweater. First I searched patterns with Rowan Biggy Print (or their similar yarn Big Wool) as the recommended yarn, but nothing caught my eye. I poured over page after page of projects knit with both yarns, but nothing clicked for me. Then I searched for yarns that seemed to be the same gauge and searched patterns with that as their recommended yarns, and that is how I found Wrenna.

When Sarah came to visit me last October I cast on for Wrenna, thinking that she could help if I got stuck on my first sweater project. A couple of days and about 14 rows into the sweater I lost a couple of stitches. I needed something more mindless to knit while hanging out with Sarah, and something more portable than 400g of superbulky yarn for our excursion to Boston, so I set the project aside & started some socks.

Fast forward to May: Sarah is coming back for another visit in less than 2 weeks (!!!), and I'd promised her the leftovers from the 2 bags of yarn once I'd finished the sweater. My DVR was at 90-something% full because I've been away on the weekends, and too busy during the week to watch much TV. I'd blocked out Sunday for a road trip to Webs' tent sale, but it just made more sense to stay home & knit down my stash (and my DVR) rather than aquire more.

Sunday morning I cast on the sweater, and 13 hours later I cast off the second sleeve :) I either used a whole bag of yarn or I lost a skein or two, I can't tell yet because I weave in ends as I go. There's a photo on my project page but it's got a lot of stuff in the background so I'm not re-posting it here.

softball last night was interesting

Softball last night was interesting. I'll try to tell it how it happened.

First game I was Catcher, and the very first inning one of the first guys up hits the buntiest ball ever - it kinda dropped straight down, and just barely rolled fair. It took me a sec to realize the ball wasn't going anywhere, and by the time I set to throw to first he made it safe. On the other hand, I didn't throw a wild pitch that could've cost us a second base, but I was bummed.

A couple of innings later, someone else hit a bunt, and I threw the girl out at first! It was my first time ever getting an out in softball! And it was the third out so I ended the inning :D

Then there was a third bunty shot, which I fielded it okay but the guy got to first safely anyways. Considering I've never fielded one such ball while playing Catcher in this league, this was a lot of action for one game.

As for hitting, I struck out once swinging, but the pitching from the other team was so poor I don't think I swung the bat the whole rest of the game. The whole game was walk after walk after walk for me. I made it home once or twice too :) We got 11 runs one inning, and won the game 22-15! (This is our second win of the season, whereas last season we only had 1 win total, so everyone was pretty happy about it.)

Second game was a whole 'nother story. I was DH (designated hitter), which was fine with me 'cuz my arm gets tired of throwing after about a game, and the next day my legs are sore if I crouch too much. And I would rather not play other positions, because there's more chances I will screw up a chance to get someone out.

Anyways, we're up and get 1 run. The other team goes up and gets six. Then we're up again, and get one run. They might have gotten 2 more runs in the second inning. Third inning was the worst. One of our guys (one of the team captains) hit a nice shot to left field, which should have been a double. He made it to third and kept going... The other team's catcher sucked, I mean really. She rolled the balls back to the pitcher! So it's not terrible strategy to try for home plate, because there was no way she was making an out. It worked for two other guys last night. This time though, the pitcher had plenty of time to cover home, and he got our guy out. The bad part was, when our player slid into home, he got up holding his shoulder, in a lot of pain. Nobody on our team was medically trained, but after a couple minutes of walking it off you could see that the injured shoulder was hunched much lower than the other shoulder...

He was tough though, and sent the male DH in to play the field the next inning, while he decided how he felt. Maybe two plays into the inning, the ex-DH fielded a line drive that popped out of his glove and bounced into his nose.

After about 15 minutes of figuring out what was what, it was decided to seek medical attention (ALWAYS!) and the surviving team captain decided to call an ambulence instead of us driving them to the hospital(s) ourselves. 2 for 1 deal and all :) The paramedic showed up along with a police car, and the officer questioned the injured players separately about how they'd gotten hurt. Apparently they thought that the guy with the shoulder injury might've punched the other guy in the nose.... The team captain got a ride in the ambulance, and the other captain drove Mr. DH to the hospital, along with about 1/2 the team who were going to help move the injured players cars to the hospital (we thought they'd lock the gates to the park & possibly keep the cars overnight otherwise).

Word today is that the one guy separated his shoulder and the other has a broken nose, which might require surgery so he can breathe through his nose. Yikes!!!

Anyways, moral of the story is twofold:
a) always have at least 1 first aid kit (which we did)
b) when someone hits a line drive to me and I jump out of the way, I'm not going to feel stupid about it anymore...

PS I finished the first of my 50/50 socks on Sunday at the Mother's Day BBQ, and I'm 2 inches into the leg of sock #2.