Did Someone Say Roller Derby?

Look at that - you go without blogging for a year and all sorts of things happen.

Like joining a Roller Derby team.

For those who've missed the revival, yes, it's back.  Roller Derby - the biggest, baddest fad of the '30s, '40s, '50s, '70s, '80s, and 1999 is back - but this time it's all real, (almost) all-girl, and wilder than ever! (Except without the alligators.)  Starting around 2001, Roller Derby has been re-invented as a flat track  contact sport, and now there are over 1,000 leagues all around the world.  I joined one of them last April.  So I spend a couple evenings a week practicing skating, blocking, and hitting other skaters, preparing to skate against other leagues - and I spend almost all of my free time thinking about Roller Derby, talking about Roller Derby, surfing websites about Roller Derby, traveling to Roller Derby bouts, or being otherwise preoccupied with Roller Derby.  In that way, it's kind of like knitting, but with more bruises.

There's even some crossover.  One of the skaters from the Naptown Roller Girls of Indianapolis, Joan of Dark, has a book called Knockdown Knits: 30 Projects from the Roller Derby Track, full of knitting patterns for the derby skater or fan.  Here's one of the projects - the Know Your Jammer hat.  (The Jammer, the skater who scores points for her team, is identified by a helmet cover with a star.)  This is a fast knit and funky construction for a hat - it's knit flat with an intarsia star, then seamed up the side.  I have a feeling I'm going to be knitting a lot of these.

So, that's what's slowed down my knitting, and my blogging, and pretty much everything else.  But it's helped me roller skate a lot faster!