Warm Hands

About two weeks ago Big Monkey had his first baseball game of the season. This is his first year of Pinto, which means that this is the first time the kids are playing a little more closely to the rules of baseball. Last year all the kids that were playing would bat each inning regardless of outs and there was no official score for the game.

Now that he has moved up to the next level, we are required to have an official scorekeeper for each of the games. Seeing that hiring a scorekeeper for our home games would add a couple of hundred dollars to the team bill, I agreed to do the job. What I did not realize at the time was how cold those night games would be. I mean, I knew that it would be cold, but I didn't think that my hands would be that cold. At the end of the evening I could barely hold my pencil it was so cold.

The next day I decided that I would cast on for these:

They are a heavily modified version of the fingerless mitts from IK's Fall 2005 issue. Click on the pictures for more details. They are so comfy and fit perfectly. The best part, I finished them just in time for his second night game. Now I am able to stay a little warmer during the games and able to hold my pencil without it being all funky.

Granny Square Baby Blankie

I never realized how quickly I would finish the Granny Square Baby Blankie until I was actually done. I mean, I had read somewhere that crocheting was faster than knitting, but I took that with a grain of salt. Afterall, everyone does their crafting at different paces. And for all I knew the person who wrote that crocheting was faster than knitting could have been a super speedy crocheter and just a so-so knitter.

Anywhoo, I finished the entire blanket in less that a week, edging and all. The only thing I didn't realize, or should I say forgot, was the fact that crochet uses up so much more yarn. Not bad if you want to destash.

Enough of the rambling. Here is what the finished blanket looks like.

I really enjoyed the quickness and almost instant gratification of crochet and even have a couple of things in the queue that are for crochet. But the next few things I make are going to be with needles and yarn.