It’s baseball time, and TNNA’s Stitch N’ Pitch℠ program is under way. Stitch N’ Pitch℠ marries baseball and needlearts for The Perfect Double Play.

Events are scheduled for major and minor league games across the country. Think: a big stitch-in at a baseball game. Check the schedule to see if there’s an event near you. You can purchase tickets through links on the Stitch N’ Pitch℠ site, or maybe a local shop or stitching group is selling tickets. Then pack up a portable needlework project and go out and enjoy the game with family, friends, and other stitchers.

Now, if there’s not an event planned in your area, you can host your own minor league event! They provide a pamphlet with tips and suggestions for hosting. We don’t have a minor league team in Alaska, but we do have the Alaska Baseball League. I wonder if Stitch N’ Pitch℠ would add an Alaskan event to their roster if I get my act together and organize one? I suspect they will.

Funk & Weber Designs and Needle and Thread: Stitching for Literacy now offer two baseball bookmark patterns, wonderfully portable and perfect for stitching in the stands. Play Ball! was just released during The Needlework Show. It uses a Charles Craft Bright Ideas bookmark form and DMC 6-strand embroidery floss.

The pattern offers ideas for personalizing your bookmark, such as using your team colors instead of the red and blue in the model, and swapping out the right-hand glove for a left-hand one, if your recipient is a leftie.

We’ve also just made the Going, Going, Gone! cross stitch bookmark design available as a downloadable pattern as well as a kit. It uses a Tokens & Trifles Trinkets Star stitching card, DMC, and Kreinik fibers.

If you’re giving your baseball bookmark to a young reader, why not present it in a book? We’ve assembled a list of fiction and nonfiction baseball titles for a wide range of ages here on the Stitching for Literacy site.

Happy stitching summer! Let’s all stitch in public—and at baseball games.