Author Archives: Queen Bee Knits

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About Queen Bee Knits

Living in Maine, knitting, baking and loving my family. Please be kind!

Thanks, Dad!

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While we were away, the weather has made a turn-around. Coffee on the front porch this morning in shorts!

Happy Memorial Day! I have taken time today to read a lot of facebook statuses (is that a word, “statuses”?) and reflected on how lucky we are to be Americans. And I, personally, am grateful for those who have served our country, past and present, so that I can be free. I am the proud daughter of an American veteran and while my father’s been gone from my “earthly” life for 25 years, I still get emotional when I think of him.

I’ve finished another “Celebration” sock but have to stop before the pair is done to make a special pair of socks for my big brother for his 55th birthday! Yikes. How can my siblings be getting up to that kind of age? We don’t act like old people but I remember thinking that when my parents hit that 50 mark, that they were darned near dead! 🙂

I also finished the navy cowl which will likely see my Esty shop in the next day or so. AND! I made my first Esty sale … the Birthday party socks are going to a wonderful young woman in Louisiana tomorrow. Very exciting and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to knit and have people appreciate my garments.

S0, new on the needles are my big brother’s birthday socks and it will be time, after that to focus on the next Prima Dogma design… and getting the rest of the house cleaned up and ready for my girls to visit.

Happy Memorial Day … and blessings to our service men and women past and present.

Warm on my Face?

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Last summer on a day just like today ...

The sun came out today. We were on the porch before 6am with our coffee. This is the life.

By 8am the laundry was on the line and I was knitting happily with the sun on my face. Working on wrapping up the cowl today and one more pair of “Celebration” or “Scrappy” socks.

How funny is it (not ha! ha! funny but peculiar in an ironic sort of way funny) that on the first beautiful day in Maine we have to go back to the heat of Florida? Oh, that Murphy and his or her laws – they’ll get you every time!

Bury the Hackers!

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My daughter’s email got hacked and “she” sent me a link that, fortunately, I didn’t open so it didn’t crash my hard drive or otherwise ruin my computer (and my day). I had my facebook account hacked once, too. “I” was spamming all of my facebook friends. And every time I put something up for sale on Craigslist, some jerk with ridiculously poor English wants to rip me off insisting that they’ll wire me the money and have a driver pick it up.

Grrrr. I hate hackers and thieves!

Why do some people have to expend their energy in negative directions? I would love to see these hackers getting the same “jollies” out of doing good. The world would SO be a better place! What is wrong with people these days?

Stepping off my soap box now. Thanks for listening.

From Soft Ball to Hard Crack

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This photo is from 2010 ... not yesterday!

I got three loads of laundry done yesterday. It’s a bit different here. I always know we’re home in Belgrade when the first load of wash goes up on the line. It’s totally old fashioned or retro or green or whatever you want to call it, but it’s comforting and I love looking out to see the clean clothes flapping in the breeze (or gale) off the lake. Towels were drying in an hour yesterday despite no sun. Everything smells better when it’s been dried outside – the towels are only a bit rougher!

Yesterday was a productive day – may be because the sun actually peeked it’s head out. I made some really yummy toffee with cashews in it (and dark chocolate on it!) Making candy is really a cinch if you can resist touching it when it’s all in the pan. It wasn’t easy the first time I did it but this time, I didn’t mind at all. A good candy thermometer is just about all you need … watch the mercury rise from soft ball to hard crack and then turn off the heat! The candy is yum-ers! If you’d like to get the recipe for the Sea Salt Chocolate Cashew Toffee, visit this wonderful blog … just click HERE and you’ll be magically transported (you may have to search for the recipe, links aren’t working properly, sorry!)! Since I changed a couple of things, you’ll have to know my toffee doesn’t look exactly like this (this is pretty but too “fussy” for me in Maine). I didn’t use sea salt because I used salted cashews. I had no Karo Syrup so I substituted honey. Finally, I used one 13 oz. bag of dark chocolate chips which I spread on top of the hot but starting to set toffee rather than dipping it in melted chocolate. If you let it get warmed up sitting on top of the hardening candy, you can easily spread it around with a knife. Then watch it disappear!

I’m finishing several little side projects.

You’ve already seen the picture of the Senorita Lolita Sweater (the first design for Prima Dogma by Queen Bee Knits). In case you’ve missed it, I’m providing another shot of the first and second iterations here. The first one “placed” in a design contest using Koigu skein-ettes. I am over the top pleased with it! The second, while it is not nearly as special visually, it’s perhaps more special to me in that it means that the pattern is written down and I’m making progress!!!

Senorita Lolita (Copyright 2011 Prima Dogma by Queen Bee Knits

 

I have finished the fingerless mittens … these are a gift for a very special person. The pattern was great to follow and you can find it HERE … I did change just a few little things. I didn’t use the smaller needles to cast on (because I like the wider, looser, mitten cuffs and these climb up your arm), I likewise, didn’t cast off two stitches for the thumb (thought it might be too tight). But I love the yarn I used and they’re really pretty – can’t wait to present them to my sweet girl recipient (ha! thought I’d tell you who they are for, didn’t you?! Ha!) I used some yarn that my daughter gave me for my birthday last summer from KnitPicks. Click HERE to be magically transported … I used the “Enchanted” colorway. Pretty!

I did finish the boulette blanket (and wrote down the free pattern which is posted here in my blog) and it was really warm. Ugly but warm for the baby when he was here visiting!

Ugly but Warm - "Boulette" blanket copyright 2011 Queen Bee Knits

I’m finishing all these little already-on-the-needles projects because I forgot all the patterns that I had intended to knit while we’re back East. They’re all down south. Go figure. Lucky we’ve got an event to attend and are flying back there for a long weekend so I can get the patterns and continue my knitting progress.

In the meantime, I have a cowl on the needles and the second design for the Prima Dogma line. Only “problem” is that with all our gray and rainy weather, this designer doesn’t feel a lot like designing.

I have a third pair of Birthday Party socks (thanks to my sister Kathy for the name!) on the needles, too. The first pair was a gift to Kathy for her birthday. The second pair is for sale in my Etsy shop. You can click HERE if you’d like to visit my shop. (Thank you, BTW, for supporting the talented artisans on Etsy.com … if you’ve never visited the site, it’s really quite amazing.)

So, I’m going to go out and brave the wind off the lake and the drizzly rain … just as soon as I have a cup of tea!

Gone knitting!

 

 

Silent Night – almost

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We sat on the front porch tonight listening to the silence.

The rain had stopped and it felt good just to get some fresh air.

The fog was rolling across the lake and filling up the valleys between the trees on the other side. Fluffy. Thin enough to see through in some places and pea soup thick in others. There was a loon fishing – moving from the left of the house to the right of the house on three or four breaths – and a pair of Canada geese flying through the fog just above the water. Honking to each other all the way up the lake. I could sometimes see them in the foggy misty white and then they’d disappear.

The people in the big house across the lake must have arrived for the weekend and were banging open their house. It’s a mile across but when the lake is mirror smooth, you can hear everything. Even from a mile away.

And as we sat, the fog rolled closer. Obscuring the ability to differentiate between the water and the fog and the clouds in the sky.

Until a bat flew over the water and we couldn’t tell if it was one bat or two.

And now, the loons are outside calling their calls. It’s apparently mating season but we’ve missed the sounds because of the sound of the rain on the roof. Their calls are one of the reasons that I love this place so much and am grateful to be here.

Free Knitting Pattern (and a little lesson)

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You may (or may not) know that I had my French daughter, her husband and baby boy here for a visit. We’d not seen each other for more than ten years and it was a wonderful reunion. I am continually amazed by how you can reconnect with people with whom you’ve lost touch over the years and, if they’re also willing, can start over where you left off!

It was as if no time had passed. (Well, except for the fact that she found a husband and has a baby!) We laughed and cried, ate, talked, shopped … a trip to TJ Maxx, Walmart and Wendy’s were some highlights. At Wendy’s N taught “la boulette” to dip his fries in ketchup! To watch a really cute short video, click here: bouletteatw

Happy Boulette bathes in the kitchen sink!

When it came time to put them on the airplane, the tears were just like those shed in years past. I’d “forgotten” how much I love “my kids” and how much it hurts to say “good bye”. But at the same time, how wonderful is it that I have this little family that isn’t really mine but feels like it!? And I know we’ll be together again (hopefully, soon!)

Bet you thought that I’d forgotten the free knitting pattern, didn’t you?

Nope! Here it is! This is perhaps an ugly blanket because I had to use yarn that I had here and it was very last minute when I realized that a warm blanket was going to be needed – badly needed!

“La Boulette” Blanket (an Original Queen Bee Knits design)

Needles: size 15 circular needle (or larger or smaller to fit your yarn)

Yarn: Vanna’s Choice by Lion Brand 4 skeins, knitted with yarn doubled throughout. (Note: this is a very simple blanket, knitted on the bias. It will make a square blanket and could be knit with ANY yarn and needles appropriate to the yarn weight. Just knit as in the pattern directions until it’s the width that you want and then start the decreases! Easy!)

Blanket Directions:

Cast on 4 sts.
K2, YO, K to end
Turn and K2, YO, K to end of row
Repeat these two rows (which are actually identical) until the blanket is the width that you want.

Middle

K2, YO, K2tog, K to end of row
Turn
Repeat the last row three times more (total of four rows)

now it’s decrease time!

K2, YO, K2tog, knit to 4 sts before end of row, K2tog, K2
Turn
Repeat the last row until there are 4 sts on the needles (decreasing one stitch in each row)
Cast off 4 sts
Weave in all ends

And here’s the little lesson …

How do you count rows when you’re knitting all rows (otherwise known as stockinette stitch)?

Counting Rows for Stockinette Stitch

Each “pair” of bumps, one looks like it arches up like the letter “u” and the other arches down, is a row. In this photo, there are five bump pairs which means that you’ve knitted ten rows … hunh? you say? Yes, you’ve knitted ten rows because there is a corresponding bump on the back of the fabric, too. For each row you see on one side of the fabric, there is a bump on the other side of the fabric when you knit “back”. See what I mean?

Try knitting a few rows. Yup, take out your needles and a single strand of yarn (the sample above is a double strand of yarn). Cast on about 20 stitches and knit across them. Then knit back again. Now … look at what you have. You’ve knitted two rows and there are two “pairs of bumps” one on the right side and one on the wrong side.

If you don’t get it, comment on this post and I’ll illustrate further!

But for now, I’ve gone knitting!

 

 

Rock-a-bye Baby

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I had the honor of rocking a baby to sleep yesterday.

I was in “hog heaven” as N. put it. “La Boulette” was having trouble staying asleep whether from being in a different place, adjusting to a different time zone, new teeth, or something else. He was pooped. When his parents went upstairs to have a nap, I got the baby all to myself and when he picked up his bottle I nabbed his little body and sat with him on my lap in the rocking chair …

My Gram was the only one I’ve ever known who had the heart, the patience and the calm to rock a baby for just as long as the baby wanted or needed. She could rock my first baby – who wouldn’t sit for anything or anyone and was constantly on the go. But she would sit with Gram in her easy chair and rock until the cows came home. Gram would just hum a little song or simply respond to K’s chatter and K would pass from bright-eyed to sleepy-eyed to gonzo. Gram was the one who, despite not having a “pot to piss in”, would buy you the sun and the moon if you asked her. But you didn’t need to ask. Just knowing that you were loved made it unnecessary. She was always my biggest cheerleader! I’m so grateful that I had her in my life.

So “la boulette” and I rocked for an hour or so. Kissed his silky soft hair, smelled his baby skin. I’m not sure that there’s anything more wonderful. He slept and I remembered my Gram. It was a wonderful day!

We’re going on a Moose hunt!

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Boogie is looking for a moose!

We had the most excellent adventure today! The “crazy” dog got us up before six and we were in the car on the way to look for moose up near Jackman, ME (way up north!) by 8-ish.

 

We stopped at a “closed” picnic area on the way and found a beautiful double waterfall. The noise of the water was nearly deafening. And there was some snow left over from the winter – a wonderful opportunity to throw a couple of snowballs for Ned.

Since we were looking for moose, let me tell you that we saw lots of signs of moose.

Moose like to hang out in marshy areas, knee deep in mud. If you have the opportunity to drive up Route 201, watch the edges of the the road. We saw a lot of moose tracks (not the ice cream variety!) and even a dead moose. Ned had to stop to get a closer view, of course. Too many flies for me.

We walked up the Bald Mountain Road trail for quite a ways. Tons and tons of moose tracks – some the size of my hand! We even went off the trail a

Moose Track

couple of times into the woods (and mud) to see if we could find some moose antlers. This is the time of year to find them according to the woman who fed us lunch at the Four Seasons restaurant in Jackman, ME. (Her husband is a taxidermist in his free time. You learn taxidermy by working with a taxidermist or by watching videos! Go figure.)

On the way back down the trail we picked up 17 beer cans and one Nestles chocolate milk bottle. Don’t the loggers or winter snowmobilers know to carry in and carry out!? Saw some pretty flowers and had a great walk. At the bottom Ned found some moose (we think) bones. I’ll get pictures up of them soon. Very cool, though!

 

So, we had seen a dead moose, moose poop, moose tracks, and moose bones but no chocolate moose and no moose. Even without seeing the big creatures, it was a great day. I got out my knitting for the ride home and was knitting away and what to my wondering eyes did appear?!

A moose …

MOOSE!!!

It was across the street and since they’re very shy, it didn’t wait for me to get the picture any better than this … what a great way to end a wonderful day in Maine!

 

The way to a man’s heart …

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There are white caps on the lake this morning. When I look outside from the warmth of the wood stove, it looks (and sounds) a lot like the ocean. It’s a bit misty, too. Not a warm spring day in Belgrade!

We have a copy here of The Settlement Cook Book. Copyright 1944, the “Victory” (26th) edition published by the Settlement Publishing Company during WWII. Compiled by Mrs. Simon Kander. On the inside of the front cover is a lovely “autographed” photograph of Mrs. Simon Kander (if you click on the link above, there is a photo of the page!) who compiled the recipes and (not to worry) they’re “tested” recipes from “The Milwaukee Public School Kitchens, Girls Trades and Technical High School, Authoritative Dieticians and Experienced Housewives” … what a hoot!

As you may know, I love to bake. When I’m up here I like to use what we have around – much of which has been here for 50+ years. This cookbook is one of the things I love (and who’d ever have thought that it’s a rare, collectible book!) The big mixing bowl, is another. Anyway, I digress … Chapter One is entitled, “Household Rules” and it tells you all you need to know about keeping house – literally. Including, how to light a “modern” gas range, set a table, and how to make soap. One of my favorite recipes, though, is a recipe for “Scotch Scones” which I’ve used as the base of my recipe below and have adapted over the years according to what I’ve been eating. Since I’m now eating gluten-free, I’ll give you the basic scone recipe and then gluten-free!

Maine Blueberry “Scotch” Scones (best served warm with a cup of coffee or tea on a cold May day, inside by the wood stove when Lake Messalonskee looks like the ocean!)

2 cups bread flour (I use unbleached all-purpose flour)
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 Tablespoons butter, cold!, cut into small cubes
2 eggs, well beaten
1/3 cup buttermilk or cream
1 cup Maine blueberries (frozen or fresh)
 
 
 
Wash your hands now and take off your rings … this gets messy!
 
 
 
Preheat oven to 350°.
 
 
 
Mix together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add butter and with your hands, mix butter into flour mixture until it is all blended in by pinching it between your thumb and fingers. Flour will look like larger grains and no lumps of butter will remain. Add eggs and buttermilk and mix until just combined. Fold in blueberries. Toss dough onto a floured surface and pat or roll to a square about 3/4 inch thick. Cut into triangles about 2 inches across. (This time, though I patted mine into a circle 3/4 inches thick and cut it into large wedges.) Transfer to greased cookie sheet, brush with egg white, and sprinkle with your choice of brown sugar and cinnamon, organic raw cane sugar, cinnamon sugar, etc. (My traditional sprinkle is with Turbinado sugar but today I used brown sugar and cinnamon.)
 
 
 
Bake for approximately 15 minutes.
 
 
 
For the gluten-free version, substitute Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free baking mix for the flour and add 3/4 teaspoon of xantham gum but the rest of the recipe is the same.
 

Now, for a cup of tea and a bit of knitting … new on the needles this morning, the Queen Bee’s Tweed Boulette Blanket. My French daughter and her family are coming to visit after waaaayyy too many years and I’m worried that the baby, la boulette, will be cold. So, what does a good “grand-mere” do? … She knits one!

Off I go to knit and snack!