Ellington

Three Black Sheep-A Yarn Shoppe is holding its second Stich n’ Pitch event at AT&T Field as the Chattanooga Lookouts face off against the Jacksonville Suns Thursday, May 24 at 7:15 p.m.

“The idea is to bring as many people as possible to bring awareness to the fiber arts,” said store owner Diana Kessler.

“It’s a good way to show you can take your knitting anywhere,” said Kim Callaway, who attended last year’s Stitch n’ Pitch. “All you need is your needle and your yarn.”

Kessler said 60 people attended the inaugural 2011 event, and she hopes to attract around 100 fiber-arts enthusiasts this year. Attendees brought their family members along with material to knit, crochet, embroider or otherwise engage in the fiber arts at the game as a group.

“I was so pleased at the number of people who turned out from all over, and the distance people traveled to go to the ballgame to sit with strangers,” said Kessler, who met a woman who rode a bus two hours alone to attend the event. “Everyone was fast and furious friends, and we were such a spectacle at the ball game.”

“I like that I was able to take my son,” said Callaway, who attended the event with her son Logan and mother Carolyn Ballard. “It’s a family thing.”

Tickets are $7 and should be purchased through Three Black Sheep in order to be seated with the group and be entered into a raffle to win prizes from fiber arts vendors sponsoring the event, as well as the National Needle Arts Association. Companies offering free goodies include Brown Sheep, Aslan Trends, Malabrigo, Muench (Knitter’s Pride), Plymouth and others.

Numbers listed on admission tickets will be randomly chosen for giveaways, said Kessler, and every attendee will receive a bag filled with freebies such as yarn and patterns from vendors.

Attendees can also choose to be enrolled in a raffle in which the winner throws the game’s first pitch, an honor bestowed upon Kessler at last year’s event.

If You Go

Purchase tickets at Three Black Sheep, located at 1221 Taft Highway. For more information call 886-9276. AT&T Field is at 201 Power Alley and can be reached at 267-2208.