Baktiari, The Hat

After months of being completely blocked, unable to come up with a name for this pattern and the attention span to sit and write, I am finally able to present...

Baktiari is a hat that can be knit in either a beanie or a slouch in size large (22") or small (18").  The large is knit using either aran or worsted weight yarns and the small is knit using either worsted or sport weight yarns.  The background can be knit with stripes like the grey, white and pink example or with a solid background like the teal and gold example.

The slouch hat chart includes a section that can be repeated if you wish to make a longer hat like a stocking cap.  If you march to the beat of your own drummer, you can even use the motif to make something bigger like a sweater, blanket, ect.

The pattern includes all yardage information.

Pom Pom and i-cord instructions can be found in my flickr account.  I do not include instructions for tassels but a google search of "tassel tutorial" comes up with many.

Thank You to my mom and sister for helping me try to name this thing.

Next up, a simple pumpkin motif pattern for October.

Sneak Peek alert...

I have posted a sneak peek of my next hat pattern on my Ravelry group's message board.  If you are so inclined please go check it out!

Gotham Skies... Available Once More!

About two years ago I designed a pair of steampunk inspired socks for The Sanguine Gryphon.  At the end of last year Sanguine Gryphon split into two separate companies and the sock pattern was no longer for sale anywhere.  Well as of this week I am happy to announce that the pattern is once again available for purchase!  You can find it on in my Ravelry pattern store, or you can purchase it through Cephalopod Yarns (soon) while you pick up some gorgeous Skinny Bugga to knit the socks with!

I am hoping to find the time to knit up one sock in a slightly heavier yarn and use it as a Christmas stocking.  My apartment has this awesome mantel and it needs some stockings come December.  

I need to thank my pal Carly for letting me use her feet to take pictures.  I like to ambush my friends at work and say "Pretty, pretty please can you model this so I can take pictures?"

My Ravelry Group

The day job is slow right now so I thought I would tackle a few things I keep putting off.  One of those things is starting a Ravelry group for Thea Eschliman Designs.  If you are interested please join!

I thought I would use it to announce new patterns, the occasional promotion, and as a place for people to post their finished projects.

Now, a Sneak Peak!

This is one of the projects I have been working on this summer.  I am hoping to have a cowl and baby blanket ebook by fall.  There are other patterns much closer to completion that will be published first but I am so in love with these mermaids I had to share.  The half a tail you see under the stitch marker is a seahorse :)

The picture was taken at Rockaway Beach in Queens NY.  It was my favorite place last summer, wonderful on the day I took this picture, but has progressively gotten more crowded and the crowds are leaving the place trashed.  Not cool.  Trash = seagulls = seagulls pooping on people.  NOT COOL.  If caught on the right day at the right time though, you can knit a way in crisp ocean air, which is at least 10 degrees cooler than everywhere else, while watching surfers.

Hope to see you in the Thea Eschliman Designs Ravelry group!

Pollen and Bubbles Cowl

In January this year I was still riding that wave of energy from slamming out Christmas knitting, so I decided to whip up a bunch of matching cowls from some of my hat patterns.  You have already seen the Pop Blossoms cowls, I have finally gotten around to photographing the Pollen and Bubbles cowl I also made.

I wanted to mirror the flower pattern from the Pollen and Bubbles hat along the top of the cowl but the pattern did not quite match.  Luckily all it took was adding one additional line to the colorwork charts to make the patterns match up perfectly.  I have added that one additional line of colorwork to the Pollen and Bubbles hat pattern as well as adding some instructions for making the cowl.

The instructions do not include any yardage requirements, because the charts can really be used with any weight of yarn, they can be repeated as many times as you want to make the circumference wider or the cowl longer.  The cowl can also be finished with a full lining or without.  Because there are so many variables, I did not include yardage.

If you are curious what yarn I used for the example, the red is a Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Solid and the teal is Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Baby.  They are both Aran weight.  The charts were repeated 8 times around and Chart B was use twice to give it height.  I did not fully line this one, it is just hemmed at the top and bottom.  It is a whopping 34 inches in circumference and 13 inches high.  I made it super big and chunky.  

I hope everyone reading this has been able to stay cool enough to knit this summer.

Cylon Centurion Hat 2012 Update, Done! Finally!

Remember this?

It took several months longer than I wanted, but the Cylon Centurion Hat pattern has been rewritten!  It is longer (the pattern, not the hat), and probably looks more complicated, but it should make more sense and actually make the hat without trying to divine what I was attempting to communicate in the first version.  I was very, very, very new to pattern writing and using relatively unfamiliar-to-me shaping when I wrote the original pattern.

The updated pattern has been uploaded to my Ravelry store, still for free.  

download now

If you spot any errors please let me know.  If you have any questions about construction, don't hesitate to ask!

Wonderfallz(at)gmail(dot)com or message me on Ravelry

And check out who's face is uncovered.  By finishing the pattern, I paid the ransom (to myself, god, I'm such a nerd), and the digital post-it over Nathan Fillion's face has been removed.

It's like my very own slow moving, lame video game.

7 Year New York-iversary

Seven years ago I flew into NYC to live.  I'm not sure why it is that I can't remember birthdays outside of my immediate family but the day I arrived in NY is etched in stone.  I remember the first 6 months when I cried every single day in a haze of terror, anxiety and homesickness.  I remember the 3rd and 4th year when I swore I would leave by the 5th year because NY summers are the worst.  There is so very much to hate about the day to day grind of living in NY that sometimes I find myself surfing the craigslist apartment listings in Maine.  But then I find myself walking around the lower east side, on a hunt for some kale chips that I had read about in NY Magazine, and I run into a friend on St. Marks, the street I thought was the absolute coolest when I visited at age 15 and saw RENT for the first time.  I take a sprawling long walk to my subway stop, get the kale chips, stop by the good gelato place, and run into a yarn store.  A few days later I leave from work, get a good mocha from City Bakery made with read chocolate, not syrup, run into the paper crafts store, browse for books at Books of Wonder, Barnes and Noble, and The Strand, get fancy little forks for .99 at Fish's Eddy, and check out what the occupy people are doing in Union Square Park.  It is on these wonderful walks after work and on the weekends, or when I see a musical, or go to a movie in the park that I understand what is so completely amazing about the city and why we all put up with insanely high prices and incredibly frustrating behavior.  At this point I know, it will physically hurt, like a really bad breakup, if I ever leave NY.  So in honor of my New York-iversary I stopped by the Madison Square food market, picked up a slice of Crack Pie from the Momofuku stand and then ran over to the Shake Shack, because this is NY and I can.