Queen Bee Knits

Knitting, Living, Loving, Baking, Tips, Tools and Idle Chatter

Three Cheers (for the Red, White and Blue)

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Queen Bee Knits

Yesterday I spent a wonderful day learning something new.

The Class Sample … this is what my quilt will look like

I took a Flag Quilt class at the Cotton Cupboard in Bangor, Maine with a friend and we had a great time. It was my first ever quilt-making class and it was a positive experience for this once-a-failure sewer!

I’ve made a few other quilts in my life. I made several Amish Tied Quilts back when my children were little. One for each of them and a few others interspersed. They are funny to look at today … my color choices “date” the quilts with the exception of the eldest daughter’s which is red, white and blue. My quilt already shows that I was into the black and yellow “bee colors”. I have all of them here in Maine and one day they’ll go to the kids homes … when they all have room for a quilt.

My Log Cabin Quilt … finished and on our bed

The last two summers I worked on a Log Cabin quilt which I finished and had quilted at Quilt Divas in Rockland. I love it and it’s on our bed.

The quilt that I’m working on for this class is a throw quilt and it’s got several things going on. It’s straight piecing, some appliqué and some curved sewing. I’ve never sewn a curved seam in my life! I felt relatively adept at the cutting and straight sewing although one of my classmates gave me a couple of new tips that I really appreciated. The appliqué I had done once and that was alright. I have a lot more stars to appliqué so I’ll be a professional when they’re all done! The curved sewing will take me awhile … and is my biggest challenge.

Curved seams … I did pretty well. It just takes time

When I was all done, I was sore and feeling successful … I had only screwed up one star square (and have to cut a few other pieces to be able to finish my quilt) because I hadn’t been warned about making sure the squares were not all facing the same way. Fortunately I have extra fabric!

I will keep plugging along at it and I will show the pictures of the final project …. whenever I get it done (and quilted.) Since it’s a throw, I’ll plan to quilt it myself.

Gone knitting!

10th Annual Florida Fiber In

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Queen Bee Knits

Today was spa day for my two little dogs and I decided, despite a not-so-good sleeping last night that I’d zip on down to the I-drive (aka tourist) area to see what the Florida Fiber In was all about. I’ve been here for seven of their ten years and haven’t made the event yet.

I made it just in time to catch the important particulars on Cool-Aid dying fibers.

Dying Yarn with Cool Aid

I wish that I had thought, at the end of my time there, to take a picture of the finished yarn. It was amazingly colorful (and so were the hands of the dyer!) and I can’t wait to give this a try! She was working with a Brown Sheep natural wool yarn but you can use any natural fiber yarn.

The rest of my time was spent shopping and gabbing since I forgot to bring my knitting bag. Mostly because I left before having my coffee and my head wasn’t all together yet! Regardless, I loved seeing our Florida fiber truck!

Four Purls Yarn Truck

Four Purls has been in business for several years and Laura decided to add the yarn truck to make it possible to take her business out to local events, fairs, etc. What she didn’t realize was that she couldn’t be everywhere at the same time. The truck is sleek and a really great way to spread the love of fiber! Four Purls was one of the vendors this year inside the event space and the truck was outside. I did, I must confess, buy a little yarn and a new project bag … seems I can help myself!

The vendors were great. There were multiple people demonstrating carding, spinning, and weaving on a giant triangular loom.

Seven Foot Triangular Loom

The Orlando spinners were in full force as they are at all fiber events in our area.

Spinners!

I still am waffling about whether I want to learn to spin … or not. And until then my mother’s reproduction spinning wheel (which is still broken from my move to Florida seven years ago) sits idle. And I buy yarn rather than roving! The same woman who did the class on dying gave me the name of a woman who might be able to fix my wheel for me … and that would be super cool. Even if I don’t choose to spin right now.

And, as I said before, despite saying that I wasn’t going to buy any yarn, I did manage to buy some fun things including a lovely Atenti project bag. I just loved the colors so much and the size is perfect for small projects to carry around with me!

My bag – outside!

My bag inside … dontcha just love the leopard fabric?

My haul!

I got away with the Unofficial Downton Abbey book, two patterns, four hanks of Cascade’s Souk (color 5 colorway) and the Groovy shawl pattern by Annie Lee to knit with it. Swallow Hill Creations’ April (a skinny scarf with beads) and the necessary supplies to knit it up. And a Christmas present or two will be coming from my purchases so it’s not all selfish buying!

I had a great time at the Florida Fiber In! What a great start to my day!

Gone knitting!

Nuno Felting Class

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Queen Bee Knits

I spent the day as a fill-in yesterday at the Orlando home of Terri Pike, Queen of Nuno Felting and all things felted. A pair of ladies had signed up to take the class and one needed to cancel, leaving a spot open … and I “nabbed”! Boy, am I glad I did! What a blast!

I’ve admired Terri’s creations over the months that we’ve been knitting together and listened to her felting stories.

We started the day with picking our silks and then choosing roving and other yarns, beads, etc. to use as decoration for the scarves in process! Decorating both sides of the scarves to make a reversible or two-sided garment/art piece.

Side one … my inspiration started out to be a Monet painting. More the idea of one than one in particular. Like a huge flower garden when you’re standing ten feet back and squinting (thank you Leslie for your theatrical perspective!) Anyway … you layer sheets of silk and wool roving and trips to make your design and then you carefully (with plastic wrap and long (I mean long!) pieces of insulation boards) flip it over.

Side two! This is the side that the fringe is on (if you want a fringe!) I decided to try it because I wanted to try just about everything possible to see how it’s done. And, you know, if I were a betting woman, I’d bet just about anybody with a pair of strong hands and a supplies list could do this successfully … IF (and that’s a big if) they were smart enough to use Terri’s videos!

So, here are some more photos of my scarf and Jane’s. It’s really fun to see how two people with the same teacher and the same supplies can make something totally different … and they’re both so pretty! Enjoy!

Jane’s beautiful scarf was on a rose colored silk with blues and pinks. More abstract than mine but I love the white “bobbles” in the trip and on the other side she used a “sparkly” fun fur yarn as a trim.

On top of bubble wrap and under plastic wrap … getting ready to roll … and roll, and roll, and roll (switch) and roll, and roll ….

My scarf had to have a bee, of course! (There’s actually one on either side of the scarf!)

My scarf has been rolled (for nearly an hour and a half!) All the plastic wrap has been removed and it’s time to get it wet. The design is covered with a bit of netting while we get it wet!

After wetting and rolling and rolling, we shocked the piece with really REALLY HOT water and rubbed it by hand (more like wet felting). Then it was time to rinse!

What a great day!

Terri can bee (ha! Freudian?) found on Facebook and on the internet. Watch her videos, buy her e-book. Check out her website!

Gone to trim my fringe!

Are You Going to (Common Ground) Fair? Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme … For Fun!

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Queen Bee Knits

Prize Winning Posies

A great weekend with my knitting buddy, Kelly. She arrived in Bangor on Friday night … just in time for a lobster dinner at the lake and it was good!

Saturday, despite the dreary and wet weather report, we decided to chance it and head to the Common Ground Country Fair (MOFGA) in Unity. N. took the truck for his Saturday morning visit to the Transfer Station and then we hit the road – Ethel the GPS, plugged in and working hard to direct us!

The fair was excellent! And it only drizzled a little bit – enough to be bothersome for a very (very!) short while. We had such a great time and I ran into two people that I know – feels like I’m almost a native Mainer!

Here are the highlights:

Yarn! Yarn! Yarn!

Yarn! Yarn! Yarn! The displays were amazing and spread all over the fairgrounds. I bought a couple of gifts to be given on birthdays coming up. Top colorful purple/yellow/green (like Mardi Gras?) and the ivory yarns are DK weight merino and alpaca blends, very reasonably priced, from Oasis Farm Fiber Mill in Otisfield, Maine. The pale pastels yarn is from Good Karma Farm in their sea foam color way. I love the colors of this yarn and it’s a wool and alpaca blend from Belfast, Maine. I had to visit every booth at the fair (yes, I mean “every”) to decide just which ones I was taking home (since I’ve still got a few from last year that I didn’t knit yet.)

The Fiber Tent was very interesting. We touched almost every single bag of fleece. We both want to learn how to process the wool all the way from animal to knitting needles. We ogled a few spinning wheels and the Wednesday Spinners in action.

Is Your Mama a Llama? Check out that underbite!

We viewed a bunch of critters … bunnies, chickens, a very noisy guinea hen, the most beautiful turkey (Best in Show!) with copper and iridescent feathers – a truly gorgeous bird! We saw the sheep, goats, horses, a couple of llamas and oxen.

Blue Ribbon Butts!

Veggies and flowers and preserved food, oh my!

Wall of Pretty Pickles, etc.

There was a tomato that looked like a duck and lots and lots of pretty flowers, beans, beets, pumpkins, gourds, squash, beets, radishes, onions, leeks, quilts, knitting (I may have to enter next year!), potatoes, pumpkins large and small … phew! I need to take a breath!

Tomatoes are Ducky!

Bee-Utiful!

Beans, Beans They're Good for Your Heart!

We had such a great time. We drank organic blueberry soda, ate stir fried organic veggies, some vegetable curry, pad thai, and for dessert a blueberry cheesecake cone (if you’ve never seen or heard of this, it’s worth a look for one!) The food area was simply amazing … if the day were a bit longer, we could have eaten more!

I found a really special poster from their 1998 fair … it’s un-BEE-lievably fun for this Queen Bee! It will be framed and hung in my Atelier! I’d love to show you a picture of it but it’s all wrapped up and waiting to travel!

I have only touched on a tiny corner of the iceberg (so to speak) and there was so much more to see and experience but I’ve not got the time here. Suffice it to say that while our feet and legs and hips hurt, our hearts and tummies were full and our souls were fed. It’s a great weekend, and a wonderful place to spend an hour or a whole day – next year, I’m taking my knitting and will sit and watch the people! Good for a family fun day, a girls day out or just about any “reason.”

We had a wonderful time at the Fair!

Rainy Day Activities

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Queen Bee Knits

It’s another rainy day in New England and so we took a drive to Freeport where there was a “huge tent sale” advertised and as it was to support a foundation, we thought it was a good one to support. Well, not so much “huge” as “pretty big”. I was thinking yarn and needles and maybe even a spinning wheel (not that I would know what to do with it) or an armoire for the bathroom. Yeah, well, no. But we did buy a $10 canoe paddle (we don’t own a canoe).

While in Freeport, I had to stop for a couple of gifts at L. L. Bean and then while N. went to look at a used canoe … I got dropped off in Bath. Home to Halcyon Yarns. I’ve been there before and loved wandering the store. Halcyon has fiber and just about anything you can imagine for spinning, felting, weaving, knitting, crochet, etc. I have yet to leave the store without saying, “Someday, I want to learn to …” (weave, spin …) I loved a shrug-cowl-thingy that they had as a sample and if they’d had three or four skeins of the yarn in the bargain bin, I’d have bought that too … it’s from the book Cowl Girls which is loaded with cowls that I would love to knit (if I just had more hours in the day!)

Today, after a couple hours of browsing, I left with a big shopping bag full of yarn.

My Haul! 🙂

Cotton (on a cone!) for a vest in a really pretty khaki with a browny-green tint for moi! – and several other gift items that I want to make for birthdays and Christmas. (Yes, I’m already thinking ahead to Christmas!) A couple of pairs of worsted weight socks, alpaca fingerless gloves, mittens and a couple of patterns. The best part is that with the exception of the yarn for my vest and the aaforementioned pair of mittens that I’ve been wanting to knit (you’ve seen the Bella mittens from Ravelry?), all of the yarn was half price or just about half price. So, when the total was rung up, I was so excited! Such a deal!

All knitters know that this is an expensive habit. Today I celebrated clearance bins!

When we got just a little bit lost on the way back home, the second (or was it third?) dead end we came upon, we decided to stop to let the dogs out to do their business and saw a bird that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before … I consulted the bird book that lives in the car and found that it was a bobolink. They are really pretty little birds and we enjoyed watching a couple of males and a female fly around this lovely field that we “found”. Thanks for the photo to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website … if you like birds, you’ll love this site!

After that, we decided to follow Ethel’s (our GPS) directions and we actually made it home.

Now, dear readers, I’m going to upload a couple of photos for you and then I’m outta here. New fiber means new knitting adventures!

Paris, here I come (I hope)

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Queen Bee Knits

So, it’s a long story but I’m entering a contest and I could win a trip to Paris for two! Yikes! How cool is that?!

Suffice it to say that I’d love to visit Paris. It’s been on my bucket list for ages and now that I have my first “grand baby” to visit over there, it’d be even more wonderful. Seeing Flo and Francois, Laure and Stan and darling little Olivia, Elise and her husband and Boston Terrier, meeting Marie France and Claire (finally) – O.M.G! It would be wonderful to win.

So, here’s the link if you’d like to win – Oh Happy Day Goes to Paris -I’m all about sharing the wealth (and if you win, you must take the Queen Bee!) Good luck!

My fingers are crossed. It’s going to be tough knitting today! 🙂

Guilty Pleasures

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Queen Bee Knits

What you may not know is that I love watching a couple of shows on TV. Since we cut off the cable, it’s been a bit more challenging but it’s not impossible!

Most of the time, I watch Grey’s Anatomy on hulu or ABC.com after it’s been aired. Most of the time, I don’t really “care” whether I watch it on time or later but tonight I do care! It’s the final night of the Bachelor … Jake’s second time around. Call me a hopeless romantic, but I always start off laughing at the whole process and then somewhere in there I start to like the bachelor (or bachelorette) and a few of the girls (or guys). SO …

Tonight I’m hunting for a website where I can watch TV “live” (LOL! I just mis-typed that last word and it was “love” rather than “live” … Freudian slip of the fingers?) Anyway … since I know that it will be all over the internet and facebook tomorrow morning, that means that it’ll be wrecked for me (even if I think I know who’s going to win!)

JustTVnuts.com seems to have a streaming of ABC … I’m crossing my fingers and planning to have a lovely little martini to celebrate Jake’s engagement to … to be continued!

Bachelor and Emily

The Savages

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Queen Bee Knits

The Savages

We watched a sweet, if somewhat depressing, movie last night. I didn’t think it was going to be one that I liked and was surprised to like it at the end. “The Savages” (Click here to read the NY Times review!) is about a dysfunctional family (like there are families that are not) that doesn’t really seem to have any connection until dad’s girlfriend dies and he’s forced by her family to move out of the house that they shared because of some pre-nup that wasn’t really a pre-nup. Anyway, they move their father to a nursing home in Buffalo and the daughter stays with brother in Buffalo through the holidays and they all get to know each other. The scene that “got me” was when the brother tells the sister that her play is good …

I’ve just lived that scene. A week or so ago, I had a voice mail on my cell phone from my brother’s new wife (my new sister). The gist of the message was that he’d found my blog and was amazed that I was blogging and that he liked my blog. Not only had I whooped his butt in Scrabble when we were out in California for the holidays but I was blogging … and doing it well. He said that he had underestimated his big sister! Abbie said that he was completely blown away … and he said that it was good stuff! It touched me right where it counts because I’ve never been told how special I was and just knowing it myself wasn’t really enough. I needed the outside validation from the people in my life who really mattered. Hearing it from my brother (and sister) felt so great – and I’ve saved the message. It’s a healing thing. Healing from never being good enough for my parents because I was just a girl. My father’s famous phrase was, “Pretty good, Monk” never “Good Job” or “I’m so proud of you.” It was “Of course we love you” during an argument not just “I love you” for no reason.

So, just for today I’m relishing the fact that my younger brother thinks I rock … and it’s really good!

Passion … fruit?

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Queen Bee Knits

My baby RIPE Pineapple

I love to “cook” (translation – bake) and wanted to share a few recipes with you that are my favorites in this blog. While this isn’t actually a baking recipe, it’s one of my favorites!

Pineapple-infused Vodka

1 fresh, ripe pineapple
1 bottle cheap (or pricey) vodka

Peel and slice the pineapple and place the good stuff in a large plastic or glass container with a lid. Open the vodka bottle and pour the contents over the pineapple. Put the lid on the bottle and stash it in the refrigerator for no less than two weeks. Strain vodka, toss out the pineapple (taste it, it’s nasty now!) and keep refrigerated.

(I love this over ice, equal parts of pineapple vodka and pomegranate juice with a wedge of lime, squeezed.)

LOL! … guess my priorities are enjoyment.

Lesson 1: I like to have fun … a cold beverage is lovely at the end of the day and I do enjoy one … or two.
I am a (mostly) happy person and embrace life with an open heart and an open mind … and am truly blessed.

PS – the little pineapple grew in a pot at our front door. Right before we were to leave on vacation, we picked it and ate it. It was good. Thank you pineapple!