Once Upon a Rhinebeck: New pattern 🍁

help, I can't seem to stop alliterating!

Once October arrives, it seems like we get hit with all the “It’s Fall, y’all!” proclamations and a little pounded by posts peddling pumpkin-spiced popovers.

Alliteration abounds 😉

I love it but do get some of the frustration—many folks won’t need to even think of turning on the heat until the end of November, and there might not be a scent of apple crisp in the air for a while.

But we can’t escape the tilt of the earth no matter where we live, and in the northern hemisphere, the days have definitely gotten shorter. So for this last blast (at least in the U.S.) before we turn the clocks back, it’s a time to get outside and do whatever fall activities we enjoy while the sun is out.

For us yarn lovers, this often means flocking to a fall fiber festival (can’t seem to shake this alliteration thing…), and one of the biggest of these is the New York Sheep and Wool Festival (aka “Rhinebeck”). It’s a truly lovely fair that always coincides with stunning fall foliage, friendship, and fun (I need to show myself out….) pretty leaves, yarn pals, and enjoyment.

I’m lucky enough to live a drivable distance from Rhinebeck, NY, so I go almost every year—this weekend included! And to celebrate the festival, I’ve designed a really sweet hat pattern for you, “Once Upon A Rhinebeck”:

It’s a redesign of an older hat of mine that required some extra finagling and expanded charts for those who have a tough time matching row gauge in stranded colorwork. I’ve even added ways for you to avoid the notorious “jog” that often is an issue with colorwork in the round (and it’s an easy method, too!).

The pattern is on sale at a discount through the 25th (no code needed), and I’ll also be donating 40% of the profits for October to The American Red Cross and World Central Kitchen to support their work with Hurricane Helene and Milton relief.

The hat looks great with semi-solids, but it's also a terrific way to show off a variegated or speckled colorway.  With this in mind, the lovely folks at Miss Babs Yarns gave in to my begging and  generously agreed to share skeins of their special Rhinebeck 2024 colorways dyed especially for the New York Sheep and Wool Festival this coming weekend.

I worked up the hat with the new colorways + coordinating colors, and wow oh wow, they’re magical!  If you're attending the show, be sure to visit the booth and check out the sample hats infused with their Rhinebeck-y Goodness. Several of the knitters working the booth have knit one up as well, so we might have a full-on hat party!

If you're not attending, no worries--the colorway will be revealed online on Saturday and will be available for ordering.  Till then, I'll only give you a peek in black-n-white (with any revealing contrast/variation taken out.  We're sneaky like that…). But you're seriously gonna love ‘em--scroll down:)

See you in Rhinebeck (or wherever you hang out online), and may you enjoy whatever joys the season brings.

Yarn-ily Yours,

Mary  (aka Lyrical Knits)

P.S. The sneaky color-free peek of the hats:

Is this one another cactus??