Spira Mirabilis

Here's the latest addition to the Molting Yeti pattern shop - a totally spiral-tastic baby blanket! Alternating between stockinette stitch and simple fishnet lace, this blanket spirals as it grows.

Logarhythmic spirals are really cool - they occur in nature as the shape of spiral galaxies, the arms of cyclones, the paths of hawks to their prey and moths to light bulbs (which is extra cool 'cause moths are really aiming at the moon, which would be a truly gigantical spiral indeed), and the nerves of the cornea. Jakob Bernoulli was fascinated by their properties - especially that the shape of the spiral remains the same as it grows, and called them "spira mirabilis", which is a pretty awesome name.

If you'd like to make a Mirabilis for a new miracle in your world, head on over to the shop for the pattern.

Tour de Pink Update

Nine days from now, I'll be on a bus from here (NYC) to Hershey, Pennsylvania. Yes, that Hershey, the milk chocolate capital of the world. Starting the next day, I'm going to ride my bike the whole way back again (210 miles or so) with 149 of my newest friends. And this time I won't be the only one rocking a pink jersey - we all will.

It's Tour de Pink, a fundraiser for the Young Survival Coalition, the premier international network of breast cancer survivors and supporters dedicated to the critical concerns and issues unique to young women and breast cancer. You can see a bunch more about what the YSC does here.

Thank you so much to everybody who's contributed to my ride. As of right now, my friends, family, co-workers and blog readers have chipped in $2,780, and I'm only $220 away from reaching my fund-raising goal of $3,000. I'm amazed and grateful at the response this has gotten.

So please, if you've been seeing that pink oval on the top of this blog for a while and meaning to contribute something, there's no time like right now. Please click here to donate. Thanks a billion.

Mackerel Sky

Last night riding my bike home from Church of Craft the sky looked awesome. The moon was full and there were a million tiny clouds blopped evenly over the whole thing, and that illusion happened where you're looking up at the sky through the trees and it feels like the sky is moving the same speed you are and the trees are staying still. The leaves of the trees were lit up grayish green by the streetlights and night was that inky color of darkish blue it always turns in NYC in September. Where did the summer go?

Just another of those tiny moments that made me glad I was on my bike. Impossible to photograph, and impossible to experience any other way. Wikipedia tells me it was a Mackerel Sky.

Apparatus for Orchestral Knitting