SF Giants' Stitch-n-Pitch and the tentacle hat/neck warmer

Last weekend Knitterly and the Muench Yarn warehouse in Petaluma held their annual sale. Among other yarns I picked up three skeins of Berroco's "Celtic" in a colorway that has been discontinued. I'd made some nice hand-warmers from "Celtic" last winter for my son and brother for Christmas, and I was inspired to do it again, though I don't know who the recipient is to be yet. As I finished the second hand-warmer on Monday, the thought came to me of making a matching hat or headband. I'd used the hand-warmer pattern out of "Weekend Knitting" by Melanie Falick. (I love this pattern, so elegant, simple and versatile.) I would make this hat or headband to match, by knitting it up vertically in garter stitch using short rows if it was to be a hat. But as I cast on the first row, I was intrigued by the idea of casting on a few extra stitches and casting them off on the next row, forming "tentacles" at one end and knitting straight across all the rows instead of short-rowing, making a doubled up headband that could also be used as a neck-warmer. 

Last night was the SF Giants' Stitch-n-Pitch game against the D.C. Nationals (Gnats) which ended in a win for the Giants, breaking a painful seven game losing streak. Our seats were in the section with all the other knitters, but a small mistake on my part landed us in a less congested section. Other knitters were there too, adding a feeling of belonging. 

One knitter in front of us was knitting a blanket out of some multi-colored, fluffy yarn. The knitter she was sitting with was knitting something light green and silky looking in-the-round. I had to work hard at not giving her suggestions to make her knitting more pleasurable. She was struggling with the yarn, stabbing her needle into each stitch and knitting continental style but with the yarn wrapped around the tip of her left index finger, which she was having the stretch way out and wave around in order to hook the yarn with the needle. In addition to this problem, she was twisting each stitch as she knit, making all the stitches more dense and tight. It was difficult to watch. It was no wonder she'd stop knitting for long stretches of time while her friend knit along happily.

As the game went on, my headband/neck-warmer was growing. Usually when I tried to knit at the baseball game, I'd get so worried about getting hit by the ball, (our old seats were in the bleachers under the Coke bottle sculpture in left field.) but here up in the upper deck and behind the foul zone, it felt safe. I'll bet the Giants' staff thought awhile before they picked out the knitters' section. Honey and I had a good time, although we were very late getting home.

As I write this, it's almost halfway knit. I'll post a photo when the whole set is done, and I plan to write a pattern for this interesting. multi-purpose garment.

Anna