Crackerjack: Yarn-Along #7

So, my crafting is pretty sporadic right now, mostly as Hubster and I are house-hunting!  For those who have been through it, you understand.  For those who haven't, just know it's an incredibly fun yet exhausting, stressful, and terrifying thing.  Most of our free-time lately has been spent on mortgage things, looking at houses online, touring houses, etc.

Regardless, I am sneaking in some crafting...

THE CRAFTS: I have been crocheting the same blankets...still...alongside cross-stitching.  I've also been working on that same infernal cardigan.  Can someone more experienced than I please explain to me why sweater sleeves are the black hole of knitting, the realm in which you can knit for hours and seemingly make absolutely no progress?  I just don't understand it.  The rounds are, what, 40-55 stitches around and regularly decreasing?  Logic would state they should work up quickly!  Yet, here I am three months later with not a single completed sleeve.

Anywho, I'll have more pictures of that thing on Wednesday as I have given myself a deadline.  I want to wear my cardigan to travel to NYACCE a week from today, so hopefully that gets my knitting butt in gear.

In the meantime, I picked up a "for the heck of it" knitting project to entertain myself this summer.  Those who see me on a regular basis know I'm a bit of a rabid Phillies fan, having been born and raised partially in south-eastern Pennsylvania.  Those who know anything about baseball know that the Philles are an incredibly lack-luster team as of late (...and historically...).  To make this 2015 baseball season a bit more fun, I'm knitting a Crackerjack scarf in Phillies colors.

Pattern (as of April 19th)

The plan is this:  each two rows of colors denotes one specific game played.  At the end of the season, the provisional cast-on is undone so the ends can be Kitchener-stitched together to create an infinity scarf.  I'm contemplating also back-stitching in some light blue to denote series played and to keep the scarf flat, but we'll see if I'm that ambitious come October.  My color way goes as follows: red for home wins, white for home losses, blue for away wins, and grey for away losses.

My progress, 9 games in.

...As you can see, my boys have been ever-so-conscientious of my wardrobe, keeping my scarf in neutral colors...

Yes, this is how I'm making myself feel better about our 4-9 record...

Just let me have my delusion...

THE BOOK: I was working on MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood before Christmas, but I've not picked it up since then.  I just completely lost interest, for some reason.  Part of the problem was the audio book I downloaded on my Kindle from the local library was incredibly quiet.  Even cranking it and my car's stereo up to full blast, it was darn near impossible to hear Zeb's voice actor over even something as simple as a fan.  Perhaps sometime down the road, I'll listen to the rest of it via earphones.  Right now, it doesn't fit my schedule.

In the meantime, I'm listening to Brothers by Da Chen on my commutes and...I really don't know what I think of it just yet.  It's an...interesting...book.  Parts of it I love, but others just drive me batty.  I do agree with some of the critiques: it feels like the author just took in every historical fiction trope he could imagine.  In other places, the world he illustrates in his novel is fantastically real and inviting, as well as horrifying.  I keep flip-flopping about my feelings on it.  Considering I got this book-on-CD for $1 at my local library's book sale, I can't complain too much!

I also blasted out Call the Midwife a few weeks ago, after marathoning the entire collection of episodes on Netflix in the course of a week.  That book, I adored.  I'm fascinated by the medical field--though too squeamish to have ever seriously considered a profession in that field--and love first-hand accounts of life in historical eras, so this book truly sparked my fancy.

Check out the other Yarn Along pages!