Stitching, pitching and catching up

Dolores and Hugh were in Columbus, Ohio, in mid-June for a meeting of the International Council of Needleart Associates and related activities, which included an evening at a Columbus Clippers baseball game, joined by daughter Cathy.



From June 13-15, the National NeedleArts Association sponsored "The NeedleArts Market" in Columbus. TNNA is a trade organization representing shop owners who market supplies to needle workers—knitters, quilters, embroiderers, and needlepointers, for example. The NeedleArts Market brings more than one thousand purveyors of yarn, needlework kits, painted canvas designs, accessories, and other needleworker gadgets to display and sell their wares to the shop owners.

At the same time TNNA hosted a meeting of the International Council of Needleart Associates (ICNA), an umbrella group of representatives of needlework organizations all over the world. The National Academy of Needlearts (NAN) is one of those organizations, and as it happens, Dolores is the NAN representative to ICNA. That brought Dolores and Hugh to Columbus, where Cathy and her family now live.

TNNA has developed a promotion to interest people in the needle arts called Stitch N’ Pitch where stitchers are encouraged to take their work to a baseball game and stitch as they watch the game. And so they did, at the Clippers game on Saturday night, June 13. Dolores, Hugh and Cathy joined the crowd in the Stitch N’ Pitch reserved left field section.



The Clippers are a Triple A farm team of the Cleveland Indians, and their opponents on the Stitch N’ Pitch night were the Louisville Bats. Since the Bats are the farm team of the Cincinnati Reds, it was an all-Ohio game. The Clippers play in Huntington Park, a brand new ballpark that very much resembles a smaller version of Camden Yards!

It was a well played game. Unfortunately for the home team, the Bats won 7-2 with strong pitching and timely hitting.

The local Columbus NBC TV affiliate sent a camera man to cover the Stitch N’ Pitch event. The eleven o’clock news featured an interview with one of the people from TNNA, and they showed pictures of several people stitching while they watched the game. To our surprise, one of the stitchers on TV was Dolores!

Read Hugh's more complete account of the event