SALE! Knitting on the Beach SALE!

After a recent glowing NY Times article on Rockaway Beach I decided to check it out. Too often getting to other parts of Brooklyn from my neighborhood required going into the city and doubling back. Rockaway Beach is just a straight shot out to the beach, no trip into Manhattan required. The trains run on a weekend schedule which means about 45 minutes of standing on a platform waiting and 20 minutes of actual train riding but it is totally worth it. The beach is really clean especially for a NY beach. People are relaxed and not aggressive like they tend to be in Coney Island. This could be because this has long been a surfing spot. The food vendors, who are all new this year, are fantastic. As of now there is plenty of room on the beach, there are plenty of benches on the boardwalk and plenty of picnic tables around the vendors.

I have now spent two Saturday's hanging out on this beach and have found that there is no better place to sit and knit. The lighting is perfect, the waves make a wonderful sleepy soundtrack and best of all, it is never too humid. Summers are no longer my least favorite season in NY, I only wish I had discovered this years ago I could have saved myself several seasons of sticky agony. In honor of my new found love on NY summers, knitting on the beach and to celebrate the 4th of July I am having a small sale. Now through July 5th you can use the coupon code "BEACH" and receive $1 off any of the following patterns.

Warning, you can use this coupon code on as many of the patterns as you want but for it to be effective you have to purchase them one at a time. If you buy two or more patterns at a time it only takes $1 off the whole purchase.

If you have any problems with the promo code email me at Wonderfallz@gmail.com

The Daily Show loves Handknit Cylons.

Last night I was curling up in bed, watching The Daily Show as usual, and this segment came on:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
You're Welcome - Hacker Threat
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Umm Hold on just one second, did I just see what I think I saw?

Yes, Yes I did. That was a photoshopped picture of either my hat or someone who used my pattern to knit the hat. Regardless, I am in someway or another responsible or partly responsible for the hat on John Hodgman's fake Etsy store Handknit Steampunk Cylons.

Rhode Island, I kind of love you

During my mini-vaca a few weeks ago for my little sister's graduation, my family and I took a quick day trip to Rhode Island. The point of the trip was threefold:

1- To stop by the Cocktail Couture exhibit at the RISD Museum. The rest of my family are all foodies with an appreciation for good cocktails. I am the black sheep in that I barely drink and have no desire to watch Top Chef. But museum-going is usually fun regardless of the reason. I am usually drawn to the more decorative things, tapestries, stained glass, anything that uses repetitive patterns, but this time my favorite thing in the whole museum was this piece:

For some reason this drawing cracks me up. I think it's just the idea of some super muscular guy just sitting and sketching in the nude. Unfortunately I failed to write down who the artist was who sketched this in the first place, or what it is called.

2- The second reason for our trip to Rhode Island was to stop and get a Wimpy Skippy at Caserta's. These things are spinach pie on crack.

3- The third reason was to go to the beach in Galilee, Narragansett. The beach we went to is located directly behind this famous place called George's. My mom remembers getting fried clams at the to-go window and hanging out on the beach with family when I was about 1 year old. This part of the trip was hands down my favorite. The beach, while small, was gorgeous. the sand had kind of a grey look and it sparkled like crazy due to all the shell fish in the area. The sky was a bit grey and all the buildings, fences or anything made of wood had that gorgeous grey sea exposed look to them. The water was cold but felt sooo good after I got used to it. I could have camped out on that beach for the whole summer.

Yes, I am wearing jeans and a leather jacket on the beach but in my defense it was colder out there and once I got used to temp, the pants were rolled up and the jacket came off.

This trip was the second time I have been to Rhode Island when I was old enough to actually remember anything. The first time was 7 months after I moved to NY. I had just lived through my first Thanksgiving and Christmas away from my family and was dealing with working retail on the upper east side (aka HELL) 7 days a week and still barely being able to afford living in NY. I was an emotional mess, crying almost every single day for that first 6 months of being here. My mom and sister were touring schools and I met up with them in Rhode Island. I took a 4 hour bus that was 3 hours late taking off. I was exhausted when I finally stepped off the bus at 11pm and saw my mom. She hugged me and asked if I wanted to go get a Mocha (there was a Starbucks open across the street). This pretty much solidified a happy place for Rhode Island in my heart.

Vincent Van Slouch

Finally, 6 months after it was knit, I am ready to publish the hat pattern I developed for my dad's Christmas gift (that's him modeling it on the track near my home-home). I got all sidetracked with a bunch of other projects, actually sitting and writing a pattern just never seemed to happen. That pesky day job didn't really help with that either. Right now we are immersed in a highly stylized, period, fairy tale movie. We don't do a lot of movies, we mostly stick to Broadway shows, tours, cruises and a few ice skaters but every so often a movie will need some period costumes that can't be found in stores and can't be rented. Normally I stay above the fray since I mostly manage and deal with paperwork. I tend not to do the hand work because sometimes doing what you love as your job turns it into something you don't love so much anymore. Anyway, this project was all hands on deck so I have been staying late and working weekends stitching fancy trim to fancy fabrics and trashing my poor fingers in the process. It has been fun to see this crazy-ness all come together and the costumes look pretty darn incredible. When advertising starts I will post links to what movie it is, and I can guarantee you won't want to miss it because the spectacle alone will be worth the price of the ticket.

Back to the knitting stuff, the whole point of this post, here is the Vincent Van Slouch hat. Last Christmas my dad asked for a slouchy hat. His request specifically, was for a deep blue hat with flashes of color like Van Gogh's Starry Night. My first thought was, geez dad you couldn't have chosen something a little less intimidating as inspiration? Finally I embraced the challenge and after some fun with graph paper I came up with this swirly pattern. The short color stretches are indicative of impressionist brush strokes. The different colored swirls nestle into each other, but each row is only ever worked with two colors, making the pattern look more complicated than it really is.

This hat is solidly unisex. The look can change dramatically depending on the colors are yarn used. The swirl colors use little yarn and are a good way to use up smaller leftover balls of yarn.

The pattern includes instructions for fingering and sport weight versions of the hat. The chart repeats are quite narrow so the pattern can be easily altered to fit smaller or larger heads or heavier weight yarns.