Major Knitter

M is for Mr. Met

 

M is for our favorite mascot of our favorite baseball team:  Mr. Met

Isn't he just a doll?  I haven't knit anything Mets related for a little while.  I should probably dig through my yarn stash and start something.  Afterall, it is baseball season.

Opening Day at Shea

BF and I went with our friends Bethany and Damian to Opening Day at Shea.  We had great fun.  I knit on the train into the city.  I brought along some Mets colored yarn and knit during the game.  Here's a picture of my finished sock watching the Mets lose to the Phillies

Yes.  You would be correct in guessing that we sat with the REAL fans in the nosebleed section.  In fact, we sat in the second-to-last row.  It was above home plate and we had a great view (my fear of heights not withstanding).  We had a great time.  You can see the new ball park under construction in the background.  The construction workers all took a break to watch the game.  Yeah.  True Mets Fans!

In the end, I did a RAOK with this little sock.  I saw another woman in the Upper Deck with a hand-crocheted METS blanket (it was pretty cold in the upper atmosphere).  As I passed her on the way up to my seat I commented on what a lovely blanket it was.  On the way down, I passed her the finished Mets sock.  She said she'd put it on her Christmas tree. 

The Mets Ornaments

I had so much fun making the Christmas Tree ornaments that I quickly whipped up a complementary pair of Mets Stockings for the Christmas Tree.  Thank you to everyone who expressed concern about my Red Sox knitting spree.  Yes... BF is a huge Mets fan and I felt a little Mets knitting was in order.

I think I'll have to make a series of these little ornaments.  They're fun and fast and a great way to gift a little fibre heaven into the holiday theme this year.

Stitch N Pitch Recap

BF and I had a great time at the Mets game.  We got some awesome shots.  I never found the group seats for the Stitch N Pitch, but I was with loved ones, knitting and at a game.  Good enough for me.  Here are some pictures of the big game.

Mr. Met ran by me tossing Mets t-shirts into the stands.  I didn't get a t-shirt, but I did get a blurry shot of my favorite bobble-head mascot.

Meet the Mets - Everybody sing-along!

I was busy knitting my Lacy Spring Socks - an original pattern by Danni.  It's a wonderful design that is both fun and easy to knit.  Get your pattern today!  I'm knitting it with the New Zealand wool that James sent to me last year.

I couldn't resist the Blue and Orange cookie.  Here's a close-up of the sock.

Here's my sock watching the game.  Reyes is up next.

Finally, after the game, here are the Mets souvenirs I shipped to KimW for being the first to correctly guess that I was going to be at the Mets game for the Stitch N Pitch on Wednesday night.  I hope you like your mementos Kim.  I don't think the cookie will arrive in the best of shape, but it was so cute, I couldn't resist. 

I hope you have fun at your Stitch N Pitch game this summer. 

Camera Woes

Boo hoo.  Boo hoo hoo.  My digital camera is really on the fritz.  I dropped my nearly new birthday gift fancy schmancy digital camera while we were on home for spring break in April and shattered the LCD display screen.  Then, while I was out KIPing on Saturday, taking tons of pictures, I came home to find out that none of them worked.  Boo hoo. 

I'm going to try to recreate the shot... but I was wearing my full den mother Cub Scout uniform on our annual townwide campout.  I was sitting by the side of the lake working on the edging of the Mets Cable Baby Blanket (from Nicky Epstein's book Knitted Embellishments).  It was really quite adorable, if I do say so myself.

And to add insult to injury, through human error, after thinking I had fixed the camera problem, BF, the boys and I went to a Mets game today... (we sat in the FRONT row!)... I took a few pictures of the boys and then on the way out of the stadium BF tried to take a picture of me in front of Shea Stadium with my bag of blue, orange and cream yarn for the aforementioned edging of the Mets Cable Baby Blanket.... That's when I went DOH!  I forgot to put the memory card in the camera.  So no go.  Two days in a row of potentially awesome KIPing photos down the drain.  Shucks.

Anyway, use your imagination.  They were GREAT shots.  Really.

Boo hoo.  Boo hoo hoo.

PS - Son #1 got one of those t-shirts that they blast out of the air-pressured guns.  Since he was sitting in the front row, it made it a lot easier.  A boy down the way from him wanted the t-shirt really bad, but he made a poor wardrobe choice by wearing a NY Yankees cap to a NY Mets game.  Fortunately, my son, Andrew, was sporting a Mets cap.  Guess who the guy threw the t-shirt to?  Yep - My boy. 

Mets Blanket Progress and a Few Mascots, Too

Little Bo Peep, Piazza Bear, some light reading and my yarn stash for the Mets Cable Baby Blanket.  So far I've knit about 18 inches.  I think this blanket should be 36-48 inches long.  So, I'm either 1/2 or 3/8 done.  I'll know it when I see it.  I knit at about the speed of an inch an hour.  That's a lot of time invested in a project.  It's fun, though.  I can hardly wait to see the finished product.  Whew.  The baby still hasn't been born, yet, so there's hope that the Mets Baby will receive this blanket while still an infant.

Teddy Piazza Sitting on Progress

Here's the progress I've made on the Mets blanket

Marcia is making great progress on her cable baby blanket, too.  She's much smarter than I am, though.  She's using a mock cable that she describes in today's post.  Mine is similar in that it's a P2, K4 pattern repeat, but I'm doing real cables every 4th row (as opposed to Marcia's pattern of every 6th row).  I think I'll be knitting until this baby goes to college.  BTW - the baby hasn't even been born yet.

My Mets Cable Baby Blanket got its inspiration from two places.  First, BF and I had dinner at our friends' house.  Our hostess Holly showed me a navy blue baby blanket that her mother made for her son.  I think of it as "Cable Interruptus" as the pattern is similar to what you see above (garter stitch border followed by about six inches of cables).  Then the switch happens.  Holly's baby blanket had 6 inch strips of cables (as shown above) interrupted by a 6-inch strip of stockinette stitch.  This pattern was repeated for the entire blanket.

I kid you not... the next Saturday after seeing Holly's baby blanket, Marcia came to SNL with the baby blue mock cable blanket.  I couldn't believe it.  I felt it was meant to be.  I had to make one.  I had already decided that I liked the navy blue (or other non-baby colors) and that I would make the next baby blanket out of a non-traditional color (navy blue, sage green, mustard, etc).  Thus the Mets Cable Baby Blanket was born.

Oh... and that "ruffle" effect was not intentional.  I know I should have cast on the edge with a smaller needle, but I wasn't thinking.  When I use the garter stitch border on the other baby blankets I create, I don't have this problem and I never switch needle sizes.  Now I realize that the cables really pull (and also use up a great deal more yarn) so that the bottom edge, and eventually the top edge, will look slightly gathered.  C'est la vie!

Oh, and Illanna was nice enough to point out another knitting Mets fan.  Who knew there were so many of us out there?  Check out Kim's May 12th post where she displays her talent for creativity and knitting along with her enthusiasm for her favorite baseball team.

Mets Baby Blanket

 

I stopped by another favorite knitting store of mine in Manhattan - The Yarn Connection - to pick up some accent yarn for the blue cable baby blanket I'm knitting.  It's for one of BF's friends who is part of the core Traveling Mets Fans and father-to-be.  Rather than make a blanket that screams METS, this blanket will be a solid blue cable blanket with a 2-3 inch garter stitch border around all the edges.  Then to add the METS theme, I'm going to do a very simple crochet edge in cream, orange and blue.  I think the newest Baby Mets fan will look smashing.

Oh and I also bought 2 sets of Turbo Addi needles as prizes for the WUA honorable mentionees - for those two categories that were added at the last minute.  Thanks again to everyone who helped me out with the WUA projects.