Fallingblog

Introducing Parallax v3.5

You’ve probably already heard about my Parallax project. If not, go check out the recent post about it, as well as the eBook I just published.

While I was working on the concept for Parallax v3.0 (the three-color scarf in the eBook), I began playing with some other three-color ideas. This is the one I really wanted to knit from the beginning, but I knew I had to start (relatively) simple.

But as soon as the eBook was published, I chose colors and cast on for the one that I’d really been waiting for. This one, you see, really shows what I’ve been trying to prove with my multi-color Parallax concepts: In two colors, a checkerboard is still just a checkerboard. In three or more, new options are available. Sure, you’ve got an extra color to play with, but also new shapes. I’ll expound on this more later — but suffice to say, I can use the third color to emphasize different parts of the design that would not have been immediately visible with only two.

Take, for example, the scarf in the picture. There are two distinct alternating patterns. Would you find it surprising to learn that both of these patterns are based on the same warped-checkerboard grid? It’s hard to see — but it’s true. The same gridwork repeats throughout the entire scarf — only the way the three colors are used is changing.

As usual, Parallax v3.5 is done in Kauni — but this time, I’m using a more subtle trio. One color is a Kauni Solid; one is the very subtle Kauni Effektgarn EN; and the last is a slightly less subtle Kauni Effektgarn EF. I chose subtle colors for this one because I wanted the pattern to stand on its own merit, not necessarily as a celebration of unpredictable colorways like v3.0.

Finally, for those who want to know when this pattern is coming out, I have mixed news. It’s likely that I will not release the pattern for this anytime soon. It’s very complicated and I am under no illusions about the marketability of complex patterns. However, enough people have told me that my recent work “belongs in a gallery” that I am going to begin working on a new body of work that will be Parallax-based, very complex, and geared toward eventual display and sale as art pieces, not patterns. Depending how this venture goes, I may choose to release select individual patterns later, perhaps in a book dedicated to my Parallax explorations. But that won’t be for many years to come.

MusicBlox: Boxcar

Featured artist: Boxcar (not Boxcar Willie or Boxcar Racers, just Boxcar)

Sometime in the early 90s, I was visiting my grandparents’ summer house in the mountains of New Hampshire, and we had gone down the hill to town for some provisions. In the grocery store, there was a kind of bargain bin of cassette tapes. I think they may have been $1.00 each. I dug through the bin — I have had great luck finding gold nuggets in other people’s cast-off music — and came up with two tapes which ended up being favorites of mine for many years to come. I chose them because the covers looked interesting, and for $1.00 that’s a gamble I was willing to take. The first was “Blind” by the Icicle Works; I picked it because the cover featured a guy with fish for eyes. I figured such surreal cover art couldn’t steer me too far wrong and I was not disappointed.

But the album that made me really sit up and take notice — and has been on my regular rotation ever since, repurchased several times over in CD, vinyl and finally, when the band re-emerged from limbo onto the internet, in bulk with several other hard-to-find bits in MP3 format — is “Vertigo” by Boxcar.

For years I searched for more Boxcar, but as they were an Australian group that never really gained any footing in the US, most of their work was only sparsely available on these shores. I asked friends and family who went to Australia later in life to keep an eye out for Boxcar, but by then even the land down under was short on this amazing stuff.

I had Depeche Mode and New Order and early Nine Inch Nails in my rotation as well, and I felt that Boxcar fit snugly into all of that. They felt like Australia’s answer to New Order, but far less prolific. And their producer was behind some of my favorite stuff from Severed Heads, and, as it turned out, in some way connected to Single Gun Theory as well (another amazing Australian act I was, eventually, lucky enough to see live on their first and only US tour).

Boxcar is, happily, still somewhat active if not really creating much new music. You can find them on their website as well as on Soundcloud. Digital versions of pretty much everything are available direct through them and that’s always the best way to support an artist you love.

Enter the Carousel

My lovely wife just passed a milestone (it’s like passing a kidney stone, but less painful). As of yesterday, she’s joined me in the 30-something crowd. Some years back when I did the same thing, she planned an ingenious surprise party for me, managing to get old friends of mine to travel in from several states away. Her original idea, however, was even more ingenious — to do a Logan’s Run themed 30th birthday party.

Spoiler Alert: For those who haven’t seen Logan’s Run, and enjoy campy 80’s sci-fi B-movies, I recommend it. But if you don’t want to sully your pristine mind with such things, I’ll tell you the basic plot. There’s an isolated underground society where everyone is under 30 years old. When they reach 30, they participate in a ritual called the Carousel, where they ascend to a higher plane or some such. Of course, someone in the society figures out that the computer in charge of all this is just killing them off. His name is Logan, and of course on his 30th birthday, he runs rather than subjecting himself to the Carousel.

The Carousel itself looks like a giant red modernist jello-mold or, more relevant here, a bundt cake. So the idea was to bake a cake using a sufficiently-geometric bundt pan, and maybe get all our friends together in white robes and fly around above the cake before exploding in showers of bad special-effects. Or, you know, just eat cake.

Anyway, on her 30th birthday I also failed to get a Logan’s Run-themed party together — partially because I am not a good party planner and partially because she had already planned something equally awesome for herself. However, as the day approached, I figured I could at least bake an appropriate cake. I am, after all, the chef in the family.

I had a devil of a time, however, finding an appropriate bundt pan. I feel like, some years ago, such a thing existed. But some bundt designs are timeless and some are less so, and it appeared the one that looked like the Carousel had reached its 30th birthday and expired.

So instead, I went with clean, beautiful, awesome geometry, like what might have been if Logan’s Run had been remade in the modern era (don’t do it, Hollywood! Please don’t!). I bought the Nordicware Jubilee pan, admittedly one of the more difficult bundt shapes to get right, and hoped for the best.

I figured I’d have the best luck with a King Arthur Flour recipe, and I dug around on their site until I found this one. I had some other errands to run so I went out and fetched some high-quality baking cocoa from Burdick’s and some real Maraschino cherries from Cardullo’s. I already had a bag of mixed dried cherries from my recent trip to Seattle. While my wife was out on an errand of her own, I whipped up the recipe and tossed it in the oven.

The recipe was for a 12-cup bundt pan, and the Jubilee is a 10-cup design (probably due to all the lost space from the geometric spikes) so I was afraid I overfilled it — but while it did overflow a bit, it didn’t make a mess and only took an extra 20 minutes in the oven to get to the right consistency. After some cooling time, I loosened the bottom, flipped it onto a plate and voila! it worked perfectly the first time!

The next issue was frosting. I wanted a lurid red glaze, but it had to be opaque enough so that the chocolate cake underneath didn’t show through. Some research indicated that red glaze is next to impossible if you also want the flavor to be good — too much food coloring makes the glaze bitter and the Maraschino liqueur I was using isn’t actually bright red like the artificial stuff you usually see. So I settled for pink and good flavor rather than red awfulness. Regardless, the glaze pools in the indentations and even if the resulting cake doesn’t look as beautiful as the one fresh out of the pan — and certainly doesn’t resemble the Carousel very much — it’s going to taste awesome.

So I give you: Alasdair’s Quintuple-Cherry Chocolate Bundt Cake! We’ll report on flavor in the comments. Anyone else ever done any interesting Bundt shapes?

MusicBlox: Garmarna

Welcome to the first post of the Fallingblog’s new section for offbeat and esoteric musical recommendations. If you listen to mainstream radio and yearn for more flavor in your auditory environment, let me help. I’ve been off the Top40 teat for so long that I can’t even tell you who’s playing what on the radio unless there’s been some kind of scandal. The musical world I live in just doesn’t have a word for the likes of Miley and Britney. Or, if it does, it can’t be mentioned on a family-friendly blog. Which isn’t to say that the music I listen to isn’t accessible — just less frequently accessed. I’d like to change that, and I hope you’ll enjoy at least some of what I post here.

Oh, and if you want a different experience, just use that little floating menu thing to the right and click on “All Knitting Posts” or another option.

Featured Artist: Garmarna

I can’t remember exactly when I got into these Swedes. I do know that the first song I connected with was “Gamen” but on researching more of their work, I found they had done an absolutely fantastic series of tracks based on Hildegard von Bingen hymns, including the iconic “O Euchari In Leta Via” which I had discovered via Richard Souther some time previous.

They haven’t released anything in over a decade and their website and blog seem to be almost as dated — but I’m sure if you buy their music, they’re still getting a cut and I’d like to see them experience a surge in popularity.

Find out more about Garmarna on Wikipedia

Buy Garmarna albums and MP3s through their Amazon page

Buy Garmarna MP3s through their Google Play store

MusicBlox caveat: I don’t use iTunes because I don’t want to be roped into a specific method of music management. I manage my music collection my own way and iTunes doesn’t jive with it. There’s very little available in iTunes that I can’t find elsewhere. But if iTunes is your bag, you can feel free to search there too.

A little Boston love among my perambulations

Many of my local peeps have been watching me bounce all over North America to teach double-knitting workshops and wondering, “When is he going to come back and teach us?” Well, Boston-area folks, wonder no more.

When I get back from my long visit to the West Coast to teach at Northcoast Knittery and Makers’ Mercantile, the next 3 workshops I teach will ALL be in the Boston area. OK, they’re all intro workshops, but you’ve got to start somewhere, right? (And if you want more advanced workshops, have your LYS get in touch!) They’re mostly clustered around the same time, but they’re far enough apart (geographically and market-wise) that it’s unlikely they’ll step on each other’s feet. Sorry — that’s just how it worked out for some reason.

First, on Thursday, Feb 20th, I’m presenting to the Greater Boston Knitting Guild, and then teaching an intro workshop. To get into this, you’ll have to be free during the day on a weekday, but like I said — different markets in different areas. This is Boston’s major TKGA-affiliated guild and it’s a great honor to be asked to present to them.

Second, on Saturday, Feb 22nd, I’ll be teaching an intro workshop from 1-4pm at the Wayland Winter Farmers’ Market and Fiber Day — so for those in the Boston Metro West area, this is your time! It’s also quite a deal, and you can book ahead online (or you can show up and pay at the door if there’s still room)

Third, for those who live in my actual neighborhood, I’m teaching at Mind’s Eye Yarns on Monday, Feb 24th in the evening (from 6-9pm).

Fourth, I’m going to be at FiberCamp Boston the weekend of March 15 and 16. The workshop I teach there will be more of a tasting — but for less than the price of your average single workshop, you can try out a whole bunch of new skills or even teach your own. It’s all about skill-sharing at FiberCamp!

Finally, for those of you further out but still in the Northeast, I’m teaching at WEBS on the weekend of April 12 and 13, and at Interweave Knitting Lab from May 15-18.

Parallax eBook Released!

Three years to the month from its inception, the Parallax project is finally finished. Other things got in the way here and there, but I persevered and last week I bound off Parallax v3.0 and Parallax v1.0. On Friday and Saturday I blocked v1.0 and v2.0 and on Sunday, in the bitter cold, I froze my fingers taking photos of them on the Parkman Plaza statues in Boston.

Last night at 12:30 I finally went to bed, having finished creating patterns, projects and uploading the eBook on Ravelry — and this morning, it’s ready for purchase.

Thank you for your patience and I am sorry for the long delay. I hope you’ll find the wait was worth it. And now, with the release of these long-awaited patterns, I am finally free of (almost) all obligations and can begin to focus on new ventures. In a little over a week, I’ll be at Cat Bordhi’s Visionary Retreat again and beginning to think about a new book project, continuing the vision I had for the first one.

For those eagerly awaiting Parallax v3.5 and v4.0, they’ll be released as standalone patterns once I have the time to work on them. Or, who knows — they could end up in the new book!

Happy Holidays from Fallingblox Designs

As I begin what is likely to be my last post of 2013, I wanted to thank you for making it a great year for Fallingblox Designs. While I haven’t been able to take time to design exactly what I wanted, I’ve been designing lots of new stuff for the Willow Yarns Colorwork club, the KnitCompanion kClub, the My Mountain competition, and an extra for my Craftsy class (which has just passed 5000 students)! With the help of Craftsy, my book sales have been up this year as well.

All this is well and good, but I hear the rumbling now and then: “When is he going to release something new for mere mortals?” It’s true — most of these designs have been exclusive in some way: you’ve had to buy in to something else to get access to them. But never fear — time heals all wounds and I’m happy to say I have some news.

First, I’ve got a new pattern just released on Craftsy. It’s called “Rustle Of Leaves” and is a fascinating keyhole scarf pattern with bold ruffles and a double-knit panel of falling leaves down the center. Craftsy is selling it as a standalone pattern as well as in kit form (with all the lovely Miss Babs yarn). It’s a fairly quick knit, for a double-knit item.

Second, SMC finally released the Moosalamoo pattern as a free download on their site. This is the hat that I had in their My Mountain Hat Contest for which there was much drama a few months back.

The patterns for Willow Yarns and the kClub will also eventually be available and I’ll post about those as soon as I can.

Finally, I’d like to announce that I have added a few more dates to my Spring workshop schedule:

Tues, Feb 4 (evening workshop): Kent, WA (Makers’ Mercantile)

Thurs, Feb 20 (daytime event): Boston, MA (Greater Boston Knitting Guild)

Sat, Feb 22: Wayland, MA (Wayland Winter Farmers’ Market Farm Fiber Day)

Mon, Feb 24 (evening workshop): Cambridge, MA (Mind’s Eye Yarns)

Sat/Sun, Apr 26/27 (tentative): Fairport, NY (Yarn Culture)

Thu-Sun, May 15-18: Manchester, NH (Interweave Knitting Lab)

Thanks again for a great year and I hope yours has been as good or better. I’m looking forward to 2014! So whatever holiday you celebrate, or even if you don’t, have a happy one and I’ll see you again soon!

Spring 2014 Workshops, early warning edition!

Whew! It’s been a long year and a long time since I’ve taught workshops, it seems. In honor of the close of my first decade on the knitting scene, I’ve revamped my workshops and will give several new ones a shot this coming Spring. Right now, I’m gearing up to leave for Thailand (in about 7 hours) and before I go off the grid for 2 weeks I wanted to let folks know about my confirmed workshop weekends in Spring of 2014. Some of these are fully confirmed and some are merely tentative; some are also far enough in the future that shops haven’t begun advertising yet. If one of these is your shop (or near you), you’re welcome to pursue them to get more details. I’ll be adding the details I have to my events calendar, but I’ll also post up here with a summary of all my workshops once I have them all confirmed.

Without further ado, here’s the list of locations where I’ll be teaching in Spring of 2014:

Sunday, Jan 12: Madison, CT (Madison Wool)
Sat/Sun, Feb 1 & 2: Eureka, CA (Northcoast Knittery)
Sat/Sun, March 22/23: Mt Holly, NJ (Woolbearers)
Sat/Sun, March 29/30: St Louis, MO (Greater St Louis Knitters’ Guild)
Sat/Sun, April 12/13: Northampton, MA (WEBS)

I’ve also got some tentative (unconfirmed) dates at my local yarn shop, Mind’s Eye Yarns in Cambridge, MA — and I have several more weekends in later April and May that haven’t been grabbed by anyone. They’re far enough in the future that if you’ve got a local shop that’s interested in running double-knitting workshops by me, you can put them in touch and we’ll hammer something out.

Keep your eyes on this space and perhaps I’ll see you in the Spring!

Leaves (and prices) are falling

It’s officially Fall now, and a young man’s fancy turns to … well, knitting, in this case.

I hope your fancy is turning to double-knitting. Here in New England, the weather is getting noticeably cooler, and we’re starting to see hints of the coming foliage color in the trees (Actually, in the cemetery I ride through every day, the leaves have been falling since mid-August. Go figure). Before we know it, we’re going to be bundling up and watching our breath escape in clouds of steam — and wishing we had some warm winterwear. If you’re not in a climate that gets cold (or a hemisphere where the oncoming season is Winter) you’ll have to excuse my Northeast-centrism, and make your own excuses for double-knitting.

To encourage folks to get double-knitting, I’ve done some recent legwork (ok, mostly mousework — my legs don’t do much when I’m on the computer for hours on end) to take many of the patterns available only in my book and create standalone patterns as well. So if you’ve been itching to make something from my book but didn’t want to spend the money on the whole thing, maybe it’s available now as a standalone pattern! Also, I’m having a pattern sale to show you my appreciation for your love of my designs.

First, go check out my new patterns page — I’ll add more to it as I get more photos and design more patterns, but for now it’s looking really good and working really well on most browsers I’ve tested. If it’s not working for you, you can just visit my Ravelry designer page for most of the patterns. Also, please do email me if you have problems with the page so I can make sure it works for as many people as possible.

Second, remember the phrase “One if by hand, two if by tree”. What does it mean? I have no idea. But remember it.

Third, go buy some patterns! Every pattern I have available on Ravelry is $2.00 off (except Corvus, which remains free), and even my 52 Pickup pattern book and kit are discounted. I’ve even discounted my kit’s base price $10.00 before the sale, so you’ll get a total of $12.00 off if you use the code. What’s the code? Oh right — “twoifbytree“.

A couple of notes and caveats. The “View Cart” button is only for 52 Pickup (the physical patterns I’m selling) right now. Eventually it’ll be for paper copies of my patterns and other hardcopy stuff I might print but for now it’s just a convenient thing for 52 Pickup. Any other pattern eligible for the sale is sold directly through Ravelry. Which brings me to my other note: Any pattern not sold through Ravelry is not eligible for this promotion, nor is Extreme Double-Knitting. This sale is going on through Sunday, Nov 3rd.

Thanks for reading and I’ll be in touch again soon!

Contract this!

Huzzah! With this piece, all of my 2013 contract designs are finished! And with more than a month to the deadline, as well! This one was so much fun to design and knit — and is the largest knitted object I’ve ever made. It’s a double-knit shawl in Willow Yarns Everest, and it’s 35″ tall with a 56″ wingspan. It’ll be headed to Willow Yarns, never to be seen again, once I finish working up the pattern (the chart is going to be a doozy). Apologies for the background; the only place large enough to put this for photographing is on my bed, and the cat wouldn’t be moved so I piled the sheets around her in the corner. Check out the other side here.

Now that that’s over, I’m free … to start knitting again! I’ve got the long-neglected Parallax eBook to finish, a secret project I’m working on in Bijou Basin Ranch Tibetan Dream (so secret that even Bijou Basin doesn’t know about it) and — serendipitously — I was just accepted to my second Cat Bordhi Visionary Retreat this coming February. So I need to double down on my new technique development to have something new and groundbreaking to show the other Visionaries (and yes — this does mean I’ve got my sights set on a second book in the not-too-distant future).

Yeah, I’m never going to be without deadlines — but for now, even though there’s a lot to do, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders because the deadlines are now only self-imposed. Thanks everyone for your patience — 2014 is going to be a fun year to be a double-knitter.