A Yeti In Dunsmuir

This past weekend Mum, Connor, and I drove up to Oregon to visit Oma. On the way there, we stopped in Dunsmuir. Last time we were in Dunsmuir, we discovered the best chocolate shake in the world is located at Burger Barn, so this trip we made a point to leave extra early so we could arrive in Dunsmuir around lunchtime. We got there there by two (it's hard getting up in the morning) and after lunch walked around the town a bit.

This was taken towards the end of our walk

Usually we go see Oma in summer or when no storms have passed through, so to see the snow was a real treat. I know this might sound silly to everyone who is experiencing a white winter. I've lived my whole life in places that do not see the snow. We had brought Yeti with us. He was a present from "Santa" aka Mom.

A Yeti in its natural habitat

We had seen a man with a dog go for a walk while we were at Burger Barn. When we came out, we saw them walk back up a street labeled "not a through street." I was certain we could go through. We passed a pair of young boys... possibly through their non-fenced backyard, before slipping down a hill to the street below. After we crossed the street, a snowball landed close by. We looked up and the two young boys (8-12ish) were hiding behind a tree. Connor turned and presented his rear in an enticing manner, so another snowball flew by. Then another. Connor packed a snowball, lobbed it over, and it hit the older boy in the chest. Then it was on.

The boy on the left just threw a snowball when I took this shot. 

We spent a good 15 minutes exchanging snowballs, almost wordlessly. Every once in a while I'd make the call, "Car!" and the war would cease just long enough to let the vehicle pass by. Every one who passed had a great grin on their face. In the end, we told the boys they won before we continued on our walk.

I had a tough time getting my snowballs to connect. The boys had the high ground.

Eventually we ended up by the train tracks where Connor and Mum tossed Yeti between them to get a "yeti jumping shot."

As we headed back to the car, wet and cold, I tossed a few more snowballs at Connor. It was a fun day.

Brinker

Today's featured pattern is Brinker. The hat was inspired by the book Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates, which was published in 1865 by Mary Mapes Dodge. Brinker is the second pattern to show up in Lit Knits.

Much of the story features ice skates. The climax of the book centers in on a skating race, so it seemed especially important to have skating tracks on the hat. And just as the racers go off into the distance, the skate tracks on the hat also become smaller as they go toward the top of the crown. Although it is optional, I liked adding a big, fluffy snowball of a pom pom to the top of the hat.

When I started out designing the hat, I was a little stumped as to what color to make it. Brinker was the 4th design to be knit. At this point, I had to make a decision between choosing mostly neutral colored yarns for the book or to inject some color.

I even went so far as to make three samples. In the end, the blue one seemed like it fit the rest of the book the best. To me, the white edging was like a snow bank and the blue of the hat was like the thick ice covering the river. I imagined skaters jumping off of the snowbank and skating onto the frozen river and the ribbing reflects this thought. The ribbing on the edge of the hat connects to the cables just like the tracks skaters would leave from the snow to the river.

Mum and I drove 3.5 hours one way to get photos with snow in the background. The number of times I have been to the snow is extremely limited, which turned out to be a problem during this particular shoot.
At the end of the shoot, I had this great idea to make it look like it was snowing. I thought I would just throw some snow into the air and everything would look magical. And just to be sure we captured the magic, I set the camera to rapid shoot.

Well, we definitely captured some magic. It just wasn't the magic I was aiming for. I'm not well versed in snow physics, but that day I learned that if you throw chunks of snow into the air, they come back down as chunks of snow.

And that is how I got the picture for the errata page of my website.

Snowy Sneak Peek

I live in a part of the country where, if you really wanted to, you could surf and ski in the same day. I sometimes even see car commercials showing some young daredevils doing both activities in one day. I don't identify with them. I've skied once in my life and I'm terrified of being in the ocean above my knees. Anyways, on Wednesday, Mum and I drove three hours to get to the snow, took pictures for two and a half hours, and drove back home another three hours.

Why would we do that? The guy at Starbucks couldn't fathom that we would travel that far to take pictures for a book. But we did. And the pictures are awesome. Even the outtakes. The image above was captured after I threw some snow in the air to make the picture look more magical. I thought that if you throw snowballs into the air, they might break up and come back down looking like a snow flurry. What I actually learned is that when you throw snowballs into the air, that is how they come back down.
The picture was taken with my camera set to rapid shoot. So in the future, when the book is out, I think I'll have to make a full gif of what lead to this shot. Until then, this is just another sneak peek.

Snow Play

My Mum and I went for a quick trip up to Oregon for my grandmother's birthday. On the way back, we drove through snow. I got to play Mr. Tumnus briefly.

I asked my Mum to throw a snowball at me. She had no problem obliging me. She's a pretty good aim. If I hadn't stepped back, it would have hit the camera. Instead she got my stomach. Thanks Mum.