Don Winslow Videos

[Phuong Fulsom]

Inthe months surrounding the presidential election, a series of video shorts by director/producer/screenwriter Shane Salerno and novelist Don Winslow lit up social media with their condemnation of President Trump and his administration. Sleekly produced, emotionally resonant and factually informed (and in some cases featuring A-list talent), the videos raised the level of political discourse on Twitter (where Winslow has nearly 574,000 followers) and the bar on political ads in general.

This year, however, their working friendship produced something even more remarkable: a template for those in the entertainment industry looking to support causes or candidates in ways beyond donations or endorsements.

Winslow: Our relationship has evolved over two decades. We collaborated early on, then moved on to individual projects. We came back together in crisis. I called Shane because my career was in trouble. I was writing books that were widely acclaimed but not selling. Shane offered to step in and represent me. He ended up saving my career and changing my life.

Salerno: I watch a lot of political shows on MSNBC and CNN. They would run political ads sometimes, and I would watch them over and over again, breaking them down. They all felt the same to me, constrained by time and forced to maintain a tough but ultimately safe approach and tone. I saw Twitter as a good home for longer and more cinematic videos. Twitter allows for two minutes and 20 seconds. Thirty second spots are basically all headlines. At two minutes and 30 seconds you can tell a real story and provide backup material.

But the point is what she does with that time. Based on her tag line, "Get it in where you can fit it in," (risqu pun intended, I think) Winslow looks at every aspect of her environment and every sliver of time within it as an opportunity to workout. A bench in the subway station, the overhead rails in the subway car, the moving floor of the train itself, all provide forms of resistance that she uses to tone her formidable body. There is no disclaimer in the video, but this is clearly not stuff to be attempted by an amateur on a crowded morning commute.

Winslow is also a pro golfer, hailing from Phoenix AZ and a 2014 Winter Olympic hopeful in Skeleton, a form of 80 mph Pilates on ice. Her level of fitness is astonishing, but most remarkable is her impeccable sense of form and alignment. Watching her move is a fun turn-on, because she is clearly both having fun and completely in control. She can handle the gaze of appreciative male onlookers on the train and she can handle our gaze as well. To say that these videos are aspirational, however, is a big understatement!

What makes Winslow's subway workout adventure possible is all of her training and physical intelligence. For ordinary civilians to really make use of the tidbits of time and interstitial situations in their lives to increase their fitness, they need at least a baseline of training and body awareness that most, unfortunately do not have. As much as these videos are oriented primarily towards adult women, they make a persuasive case for more and better physical education for our children as a platform on top of which this "Fit Cycle" can be built.

The Sweetness knit-along is finally over. Thanks to everyone who participated over in the Ravelry forums, and congrats to the dedicated knitters who completed their KAL projects by the final deadline! All participants who completed their sweaters in time will get the Knit Darling pattern of their choice. I'll reach out personally via Ravelry to arrange the prizes.

If you're still working on your project, I hope you'll continue posting in the forum. There's also been some chatter of starting another knit-along, perhaps for the Rook Pullover or Rockling Cardigan, so please chime in if you're interested in something like that.

I've been working on my Sweetness KAL sweater while on my Graphic Knits Book Tour through the Pacific Northwest. My husband and I rented an RV, and we're having a blast! My job as the navagator has been pretty demanding, but I've managed to squeeze in a little knitting time here and there.

If you've followed along with the KAL schedule, you only have the second sleeve, weaving in ends, and blocking left to do. If you're rusty on your finishing" skills, here are a couple videos that I made a while back explaining how I do it.

I finished my sweater a little early so I could display it at a book signing event I did at Knit-Purl in Portland, Oregon. It was really down to the wire and I didn't finish until the night before the event. It pretty much rained the whole time we were in Portland, and the sweater just didn't dry out in time. I actually had to employ a blow dryer in order to finish drying the sweater minutes before we left for the event!

We're in the home stretch now, and I'm cheering everyone on! I've seen some truly amazing progress so far. Remember, to win the prize, you need to finish your sweater and post a picture on the Sweetness KAL Ravelry thread by midnight on November 17, 2014. You can do it!

The Liwi Top was the 13th pattern I wrote for my book, Graphic Knits. When I began in late April, 2013 I was really getting in the groove of writing my book, and relaxed a little about my "knitting schedule".

For the first half of the Graphic Knits patterns, I made a calendar to help me figure out my design pace. I had six months to finish half the book, or to put it another way, 180 days to create patterns and samples for 6 garments and 4 accessories. I figured I had about 24 days to design/knit each of the garments, and 8 days for each of the accessories.

This schedule was frightening, to say the least! Somehow I pulled it off for the first half, so I was confident I could do it again. I was so confident that I didn't even make a schedule for the second half. I just picked up whichever design sketch I felt like, and got to work at my usual pace. Also, I had come to realize that it's impractical to work on only one thing at a time, and working on several projects at once could be much more efficient.

When I began working on Liwi, I was still finishing Orly, and had already begun swatching for the next three patterns (Danae, Trilogy, and Sweetness). Even with all that multitasking, the pattern and sample only took about 3 weeks to complete.

This is the sketch I made for my book proposal. You might notice that the shoulder detail with the buttons looks a little different from the sample. I had planned all along to close the shoulders with a row of buttons on either side. When I finished knitting the sample, I pinned the shoulders into place with three sewing pins and slipped it on to see what I had wrought.

Of course sewing pins rarely stay-put in a hand knitted garment, and instantly one of the pins fell to the floor. My pointy freckled shoulder poked right through the gap in the middle of one of the shoulders. There was something delightful about the 'cut-out' effect this created so I decided to alter the design. If this isn't exactly your style, you could sew the shoulders shut as I had originally intended.

This was one of the few designs in the book that I had picked a yarn for before I began. I did a lot of my yarn research at my LYS, La Casita, and always had my eye on the delicious strawberry colored balls of Rowan Baby Merino Silk DK they had there. The yarn was really great to work with and was perfect for this tailored design. I loved how the stitches came out so smoothly and mesh looked so crisp.

The yarn has different colors twisted into it, giving it a slight heather effect which I love. The heather effect makes this design a little more casual, but if you used a solid with a bit of sheen this could really be a dressy piece. I also think it would be very cool to use two different contrasting colors of lace weight yarn held together for more of an interesting marled effect. What yarn would you use?

I began working on Orly shortly after the "half-deadline" for my book. I was six months in, and had six months to go. I had made so many sacrifices to hit that deadline, and felt like I had really accomplished something.

Orly was at the top of my list to include in the book. Knitted at a fairly fine gauge, and with a very tailored fit, I knew this project would be pretty time consuming. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I finally felt like time was on my side, so I settled-in with a box set of Sex In The City, and cast on for Orly.

Months later, when I finally saw photos of this cardigan on a model, my heart sank. While the girl is very beautiful, I thought she was so thin that it made the cardigan look bad. I knew how great it could look, and thought, "No one would want to knit this."

Like a total diva, I demanded a re-shoot, but unfortunately there wasn't a budget for that. Of course looking back, it's clear that I was being a WAY over-dramatic. The photos actually look pretty good.

Even if I'm not 100% happy with every photo, I still love how Orly came out. The main design element is the bold offset stripe patterning. To achieve this effect, I constructed the body in two pieces which are sewn together right down the center of the back.

I wanted the look of a knitted-on icord edge, but when I tested it out I didn't like how the icord seemed to be sitting on top of the fabric, and the backside was really ugly (in my opinion). I tried a number of different techniques, before I settled on this one.

This technique definitely reveals my seamstress background. I love using binding to finish the edges of things in my sewing, and if this technique had a name, I would probably call it reverse knitted binding". The natural backward curl of the fabric elegantly encases the bumpy selvage, resulting in a beautiful, smooth line on all the edges. It's just so pretty to me. I'm in love all over again!

What I love is that there's something ambiguous about the reverse stockinette texture. The horizontal grain of the reverse stockinette fabric transitions so beautifully to the vertical grain of the attached icord tie

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