There's three Stitch N' Pitch games left to the baseball season. Tickets can be bought at local craft stores (a list of participating shops is at the website) or online at the linked website. The games left are the Detroit Tigers, the Oakland Athletics, and the Florida Marlins (all home games).

There's a gallery of pictures at the website as well, and it looks like at most of the games, the sponsering shops set up booths, too. Nifty.

Artist In Training discovered Tantes Zolder(which she thinks translates into Aunt's Attic), a site in Dutch & English with a whole collection of handmade cross stitch patterns available for free under the Creative Commons License. The source of these designs:

"An elderly aunt of my husband is clearing out her attic while waiting for smaller accommodation. The attic is filled with treasures, accumulated in a lifetime of creativity and stitching. Among the stash to be disposed of, a large box full of handwritten charts for cross stitch. Aunt remembers that, decades ago, it came from the inventory of a no longer existing needlework store, possibly in Hilversum, the Netherlands. I have tried to find out who made these patterns and whether they are copies or originals. I have not been successful. The knowledeable people I did show the charts to, assured me I can publish them. And they urged me to do so.

So that is what I intend to to. Publish the charts on this blog. Free of charge. For everyone to enjoy."

They're mostly small designs, suitable for all sorts of useful decorative objects (fobs, towels, etc).

From the Monroe News in Monroe County, Michigan (US) comes another article about the Monroe County Fair. This time, it's about the young folk who were crowned royalty of the county's 4-H club. As a stitcher, the queen is the most interesting, 18 year old Sara Seitz. Among her other accomplishments, she's a needleworker who does counted cross stitch, including earning awards at the fair for her work. As always, I love to hear about younger stitchers.

The Driffield Times has a writeup of the Lockington Show, from Driffield, UK, which seems to be an agricultural show with food and craft jurying, like the US's state fairs.  The nice thing is they seem to have gotten more entries than they did last year, which is a great sign of increasing interest in crafting and handwork. The winners in the cross stitch category were:

1. V. Hunt
2. S. Wilson
3. H. Hatley

Congrats to them!

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had an article about a Stitch N' Pitch game that was held at the end of July. These events sell special tickets to baseball games, where the goodie bags are needlework supplies. It's basically an attempt to reach out to more women to take an interest in the sport.

I used to follow basebal years ago, but while it's more fun to attend a game, I don't find professional baseball intersting enough to spend the time to watch. I might if I'm channel surfing, but that's about it. But, I'd love to go to a game now that I stitch. Several hours of stitching time outside and watch the game? Great idea. What I don't care for is the tone of the article, though, which seems to have made sure to quote people who don't usually follow baseball much. And I find it hilarious the guy that said, "It's boring," when asked if he'd take up knitting. To me, I don't think I could sit that long at a game anymore without doing SOMETHING with my hands. That sounds much more boring to me!