Queen Bee Knits

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

Another Busy Week and The Summer Solstice (aka The Longest Day)

Posted on June 22, 2025 by Queen Bee Knits

Today the view is hazier and just not as pretty as yesterday so I’m posting my opening picture from yesterday morning before I had to go to work. Of course it was a stunning day yesterday! I spent the day in the store. LOL. Today isn’t bad but I sure do plan to add the air conditioner to my atelier window because the heat is coming this week. The whole world is burning up. Literally and figuratively. I remain so grateful to live on this lake in the woods of Maine where I can tune out when I need to in order to regain my sanity but I worry about my kids in New York City being in harm’s way. I hope the unilateral and illegal decision by the president and his administration last night doesn’t cause too much harm.

It’s been another busy week here on the shores of Messalonskee Lake. I’ve been trying to get caught up with all the home projects that I’ve neglected over the winter and we are making some good progress. We finally found a chandelier for over our dining room table that we both like – and it’s up. And we’ve bought a living room rug to replace the old one that was my hubby’s mother’s but it was losing fiber in patches and I was afraid it was causing me to cough more than usual (my allergies were dreadful before we took it out.) We found a rug we both like from RugsUSA,com and it was delivered within a reasonable timeframe and with a reasonable price tag. We also finally ordered our Adirondack chairs from Costco and put them together for the back yard (the other side of the house, away from the lake). We have one remaining house project and that’s to find ourselves a new bed. Our mattress is relatively new but it’s too firm for me and it hurts my back and hips. We’ll put our mattress up in our guest room and will get a new one, king size, for us. We just have to find a good one and I refuse to pay $5,000 for a bed. Must be my Yankee roots.

And I’ve been making food like crazy! I was gifted some rhubarb and onlly had enough strawberries to make a couple of jars of jam. This week I bought some more strawberries and made more jam. I also made banana blueberry muffins for my hubby’s sweet treat in the morning.

AND I sewed two pillows (with zippers) for my granddaughter’s sleeping nook. I found these Very Hungry Caterpillar panels several years ago before she was even a thought and put them away … thinking I’d make something for my daughter with them since it was one of her favorite books. Little did I know they’d become pillows for her daughter who also loves the books. So, the back is purple flannel which matches her quilt backing and the front is the caterpillar and the beautiful butterfly. I’m quite please with myself because I can take the covers off to wash them. Yay, me!

Friday was the Longest Day and I’ve been participating in the Alzheimer’s Association’s Longest Day fundraising for several years now. This year I chose to spend the day knitting on Friday because I had to work on Saturday and to have put it off until today would have made my week the longest week ever. I am really glad I did. I knitted from early morning until after dark. This year I worked on three projects primarily.

I have finished the yoke and have split for the sleeves on my Anker’s Summer Shirt. I can’t say that I love knitting with this yarn because it’s a bit splitty at times but I really am going to love wearing the shirt so I am pressing on. I love the deep salmony coral color and it’ll look great with my white jeans as I’ve said here before. Now I just have to knit around in stockinette stitch until I reach the right length. The sleeves will take a few minutes because they’re short and I’ll be happy to finish this and wear it. It’s just about the right time now. The yarn is Juniper Moon Farm Zooey.

Perhaps more fun than the Anker’s Summer Shirt is my Big Love cardigan by Ankestrick. I am knitting this in Berroco’s Pima 100 cotton and it’s the softest squishiest cotton ever. AND the pattern is fascinating. The construction is intriguing and different than anything I’ve made before so it’s keeping my attention. The sweater begins with two rectangles, a provisional cast on, rows of ribbing and the stitches go on hold. Next stitches are picked up from the rectangles long sides and the back of the sweater is knitted down with stitches cast on on either side for the shoulders. There is a very simple 4-row textured pattern for the body of the sweater and ribbing for the collar and button bands that is knitted on as the sweater grows. I’ve just passed where the body is all connected around and this will be the really fun part (I hope.) I love the soft yarn and the cotton will be a perfect sweater to grab for an evening on the porch or after sitting at the beach over a sleeveless dress or tank top. I may have to knit a tank top next. I am loving the yarn and the pattern is so much fun. I keep reaching for it when I have a few minutes to knit.

Love and Light by Laura Nelkin … with a QBK twist

I have been pondering a little gift that I can make to give away to one of my Longest Day donors, sort of like a raffle, and I settled on a Love and Light (light up knitted fairy lights) and bought purple lights. On Friday while I was knitting for the Longest Day, I knitted up a heart in the purple lights but I had way too much left over. I brought it home and since it’s a gift, I want it to be special … and right! So I decided to knit another smaller heart below the first one and it worked! I knitted with fewer stitches and rows and have a double heart light up wall hanging to give away to one of my donors. I’ll do the drawing tomorrow. Everyone’s names have gone into a box on slips of paper and my hubby can draw for me … stay tuned.

So, today is Sunday and the hubby went out to find hinges to build a gate on our porch’s end to keep the granddaughter and four-leggers corralled this summer. We don’t need to lose anybody to the lake. As the grandchildren continue to be added to our family, we really want them to be able to have some freedom at our house but recognize that water is a temptation for little ones who think they know how to swim. We are doing our best to keep everyone safe and sane.

I’m getting myself organized, cleaning up and straightening up and planning for next week which will also be busy but I’m not working on Saturday … at least not at the store. I may be moving beds or painting rooms or baking or sewing … and it’s going to be hot! We moved to Maine from Florida because we don’t love the heat … and it’s gotten hotter every year. I’m going to get my work done early so I can sit and knit in the air conditioning when it warms up.

Gone knitting.

Don’t Waste a Wednesday

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Queen Bee Knits

I slept late this morning. I was up late, if I’m being honest, catching up on the Bachelor episodes that I missed last week. I know, I know …. it’s a guilty pleasure. Anyway, I was up late and missed the sunrise this morning if there was one. Ha! Ha! I know there was one but it wasn’t visible but it was bright at 8 o’clock this morning and there were some patches of fog around the lake. The ice is thinning (we know by the darker gray color of the ice) and it won’t be long until the water is back. We look forward to ice in and ice out. All of the changes on the lake are beautiful in my mind’s eye.

Today was catch up and clean up day at our house. My hubby was outside feeding the birds and cleaning up the yard. I was inside washing laundry and putting everything away from our trip. This afternoon I decided to cast on another Love and Light which I’ll be sending to Colorado. Before we left a friend from high school days reached out to me. She had seen the last Love and Light that I made for my nephew and his bride as a wedding gift and wondered if I’d donate one to her non-profit called 3 Hopeful Hearts, a place that provides grief support for those who have lost a baby or child. How do I NOT send her a little hand-knit light-up heart?

I buy my lights on Amazon (link here). The pattern calls for a 200 light, 66 foot string of fairy lights. I like this set because I have a lot of the little USB plugs around the house that I can plug into. I’ve also bought another brand that comes with a standard electric plug (link here). These are a little bit more expensive and take more room to package up because of the plug, but they’re both good to use for the Love and Light pattern. This package comes with the string of lights and USB plug and a remote control that offers you an option for 8 or so different blinking/fade settings and powers on/off the lights.

I use a US 10 1/2 double pointed needle set even though the pattern calls for a (little) larger needle. I had a 10 1/2 and that works for me. I typically have a little bit of wire/yarn left over from the string which helps when it’s getting plugged in.

The pattern is by Laura Nelkin and is available on Ravelry and on her website. I have knitted her Starry Light pattern and the saw this one and have knitted multiples and in several different colors. They’re fun, take a couple of hours and everyone loves them. I have one hanging in our living room window and we turn it on to send love and light out into the world at night. At least metaphorically.

When you begin knitting, you need to be mindful that wire kinks and the fairy lights will break if you knit too tightly. I try to keep a very light tension on the wire both to keep the wire from breaking and to make it easier to knit with. It’s a good idea to pull several arms lengths from the “spool” of wire at a time and make sure it’s not kinking as you go. Taking the time in advance will make it much less stressful in the end. Also, be sure to plug in the lights to make sure they work before you start knitting. It would be heartbreaking to knit the entire project only to have the lights stay dark!

I cast on as the pattern suggests and follow the pattern and even being mindful of the wire, I have to stop and untwist kinks several times during the knitting. I used to worry about the stitches being imperfect and squinched together but don’t worry. At the end of the knitting you can massage the shape into the perfect heart. The wire is pretty stretchy when knitted and you can really work on getting the heart shaped to your liking. AND don’t forget to plug it in again to make sure the lights still work! (Knock on wood, mine have always been ok despite some aggressive “blocking”!)

The end result is so pretty and makes me smile every single time. I’ll get these packed up and sent out later this week. Literally sending Love and Light out into the world!

Gone knitting.

Afternoon Quickie

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Queen Bee Knits

It’s been a beautiful but cold day today in Maine. I took off this morning to North Whitefield to have a look at some SL sheepskins that I’ve been wondering about for a while now. I really want one for my desk chair and/or my knitting chair. It just so happened that they were having a special sale and I could save $10 if I picked it up. So, today I drove over to Swallowtail Farm and I can’t wait to go back. I have a gorgeous creamy white XL sheepskin and ran a couple of errands and then came home to knit.

I’ve been watching some new podcasts lately and I knew that I had to knit up a gift for my nephew and his soon-to-be wife. I’ve bought the supplies and they’ve been sitting in my atelier for several months now. It’s a sweet pattern and I love to give it as gifts. I think they’ll appreciate it.

I sat down at my desk and cast on the first “lobe” of the heart at around 3pm. The heart pattern is called “Love and Light” by Laura Nelkin. I chose to knit the larger one which requires a 200 light/ 66 foot strand of fairy lights. I bought mine here. If you want to try this, buy more than one set of lights because it’s addictive. I think I’ve knit half a dozen or more. They also look wonderful in colors, too. We have one hanging in our living room window and it’s a beacon of light in the evenings after the sun goes down. They make me extremely happy.

The pictures above show you the progress from 3pm until the heart was finished and “massaged” into it’s final shape. One more plug-in to make sure I didn’t break the connections as I was knitting and I was done. It was 4:00pm. That’s right, it took an hour and a half of my time to make even though it’s tough on my hands, it’s totally worth it. I love the way these turn out!

Leftovers tonight for dinner and the bread I baked yesterday is perfect yet again. This bread baking gig is pretty cool and the house smells so good when I bake bread! What a glorious life!

Gone knitting.

The Blizzard of 2022

Posted on January 30, 2022 by Queen Bee Knits

The morning after is here. We made it through this giant monster storm with wind and sideways snow without so much as a flicker of the lights. It started out innocent enough yesterday morning around 7:00am with lovely little flakes and it progressively got heavier and then windier. As long as it was light, we couldn’t see across the lake. At times, we couldn’t see the ice fishing shack that’s about half way across. But we were warm and cozy inside our house.

This morning the sun is up and it’s a bluebird day. We spent the early pre-dawn hours with coffee working ourselves up to the digging out (which mostly falls on my sweet husband and the snowblower) but I helped! I’ve cleaned off my car, the front dooryard and half of the porch. I also brought in the porch cushions which we “forgot about” in the fall. Since it’s Sunday, he had an extra dose of motivation … the Sunday NY Times! He’s headed out to see if it’s been delivered since we can’t get it delivered to the house here in the country.

We had a good day for making things at home since we couldn’t go anywhere. I started with blueberry muffins before 8 yesterday. They were delicious. They always are. From there, we went to our own “corners” but met in the middle several times. When N. made breakfast, reheated leftovers for lunch, to watch the news and for dinner (he made Musaka!) … all in all, it was a really sweet day.

I finished and blocked the two tams that I’ve been asked to make for a customer. I’ll trim the ends and wrap and deliver them on Monday. I spent some time working on the newsletter that I write for the store, and I updated the email list. It takes at least three hours a week to get this done and I love hearing from customers who like it – and some who don’t, who challenge me to write better or differently. I also know that you can’t please everyone and I’m pleased with and proud of what I write every week.

I also knitted the Love and Light heart. This is a fun, quick knit and I was surprised and a little bit pleased when I plugged the fairy lights in to find that they were multi-colored! (I bought these on Amazon.) I thought I ordered white lights just like I bought for my Starry Light. Yeah, nope. Surprise! But it’s all good. I like the way it turned out and we all need a little more love and light these days, right? This is the third project that I’ve knitted in fairy lights. The first was Leila Raven’s Knitted Fairy Lights idea about a year ago. I merely bought the lights and “swatched.”

The Love & Light pattern was a little bit confusing in its construction. You knit one “lobe” and then the second and connect them as you knit down. You’re supposed to leave some slack (inches of it) between the lobes and I’m still not sure why. Regardless, it’s so much fun. Knitting with wire “yarn” is unforgiving and it’s really difficult to go back and re-knit. Fairy lights are not really strong, either, so you need to remember to knit gently and not pull too tightly. Both of these patterns, though, are quick and I really enjoyed them and I love lighting up the house with them.

I binge watched the entire second season of Emily in Paris yesterday evening. It’s just what the doctor ordered for a blizzard and no politics or violence. At the end of the day I picked up the Anchor Sweater and got the shoulders seamed and the collar knitted. Today the plan is to pick up the shoulder stitches and work down at least one sleeve. I’m getting closer to another FO.

You can find all of my projects on my Ravelry project page.

Gone knitting.

Starry Light

Posted on December 15, 2021 by Queen Bee Knits

This has got to be one of the quickest and most delightful projects I’ve ever knitted!

This is Starry Light by Laura Nelkin. It’s a quick knit on US 17 DPNs with a 66 foot length of fairy lights. I ordered mine on Amazon but this is a strand that needs to be plugged into a USP port. I have mine connected to my laptop on my desk and it works. We have a couple of those USB blocks around the house but I like my light on my desk – at night I can enjoy the starry light while I’m knitting in my atelier.

The knitting isn’t easy. Wire doesn’t stretch like yarn but it doesn’t take too much time to get adjusted. The start is a bit awkward as I think everyone who has started one of these has said. I’m sure that when I make more that they’ll get easier with each try. Regardless, when the knitting is done and the wire is threaded through the live stitches, you have to really “massage” the lacey wire mess into a star. I found it easier to bend the wire into 4-inch lengths which would become my star. (I wish I’d taken some video of what I did.) I then stretched and pulled and wiggled the wire into shape being careful not to stress the wire so much that I broke it.

I’m tickled with it – and bonus, my lights have eight different settings controlled by the button at the base of the lights or the remote that comes with the set. I’m going to order more after Christmas and knit up a bunch to use around the house – maybe in the big picture windows in our living room. We all need more light at this time of year!

Gone Knitting.

A Week?

Posted on December 3, 2020 by Queen Bee Knits

Is it possible that already a week has passed since Thanksgiving? And it’s been two weeks since I’ve been to work! Amazing how quickly time passes … and how I manage to keep busy despite having “nothing” to do!

We’ve been working around the house to (begin to) get ready for Christmas. Christmas is not and has never been my favorite holiday. I much prefer Thanksgiving and we had hoped that at least a couple of our kiddos would be coming up for Thanksgiving but Covid-19 quashed that plan. It was too difficult to get tests as required by the states and the risk was too great. This latest surge is a beast. But the hubby and I had a lovely Thanksgiving alone together. We cooked a twenty pound turkey and all the fixings and I made two pies; chocolate peanut butter for him and pumpkin for me. I “cheated” and used a prepared pie crust for my pumpkin pie and it was awful … we ended up pitching all but one slice. It simply wasn’t worth the calories! I have a pie crust in the ‘fridge and some pumpkin I cooked and plan to make another one this weekend.

I saw planters like the one we made (above) at a local garden center. Their greens were expensive and we live in the woods so the weekend after Thanksgiving the hubby and I went foraging in the woods for some greens and birch logs. It didn’t take long to find them and we are pretty pleased with our front door decoration. We added some fairy lights to make it extra sparkly.

We had to buy new lights for the outdoor fir tree that we planted when we had our gardens done after we built the house. The tree has grown a lot and the old lights were all dead – perhaps because of the squirrels that like to hide in the tree and “yell” at us. Two extra long sets of lights weren’t enough and even the third doesn’t quite finish the job.

Inside, I’ve been up to some decorating, too. I bought 100 feet of fairy lights from Amazon after I saw this idea on Instagram. Leila Raven (@leila_raven) was the first post that I saw and I’ve since seen a lot of others. It’s not “easy” to knit lights on wire but it sure turns out to be sparkly. The hubby wants me to knit 400 feet next. I’m not sure if that’s a goal that I want to take on right now. Ha! Ha!

My fairy lights “swatch” was knit using US13 needles and I cast on 24 stitches with a backward loop cast on. Garter stitch all the way to the end of the lights and pull the end through the last stitch. Ours are hanging in the front hall where they greet us as we come and go.

I’ve knitted several pairs of mittens for a friend and customer for her grandsons (did I mention this already?). I had a bit of yarn left over and made another pair of mittens for my local school. Kids around here always need mittens, right? I finished the thumbs last night and will drop them off today on the way to work.

I’m also working on a Christmas stocking for a friend and customer. Her mother was a knitwear designer for Columbia-Minerva back in the day and the family all have stockings in her designs. I’m making one for a new family member. I have to say, intarsia is not my favorite technique. It’s fiddly and messy and there are millions of ends to weave in. With that said, I’m making progress and hope to get the colorwork part finished up this weekend and then it’s clear sailing to the toe. I had said I couldn’t promise the stocking for Christmas but I think and hope that I can get it delivered. I’m sure going to make a good old college try!

I’m participating in a couple of KALs this month. One is a gnome MKAL (mystery knit-a-long) hosted by Imagined Landscapes. I love her gnome patterns and will eventually knit a collection of them since I’ve purchased the patterns. This month it’s an ADVENTure Gnome MKAL. Four colors of fingering weight yarn and US1 needles is all you need. I’m knitting entirely from stash. Clue 1 came out on Tuesday and I’ve finished it but won’t show it until later. Stay tuned.

I’m also going to do Arne and Carlos’ 24 new Christmas balls. I’ve printed the patterns out and I’m already feeling stressed because I’m two days behind (soon to be three days behind) but I had purchased yarn that was an acrylic and wool blend and I’ve decided that I really want to use wool because they’ll block out so much more nicely. Acrylic yarn really doesn’t block at all. So, today, when I’m at work I’m going to search around for some wool yarn that isn’t superwash to use for this project and then I can start knitting. You can find the pattern at Arne and Carlos dot com. They have an entire book of Christmas balls, too. I haven’t (yet) gone down that road but we’ll see how I like the 24 that I have the pattern for! I’ll write more as I get one or two done … or find yarn!

I’ve decided to make some of my own decorations this year inside the house. I also think I may make some simmering potpourri for my students as a little holiday gift. My hubby found a dryer ages ago and we’ve used it once or twice but most of the time it’s been stored in a cabinet. Well, I’m making good use of it! I’ve dried six oranges and three limes so far. I’ll be adding some pine and cranberries to my indoor decorations and cinnamon sticks and cloves. This weekend is bound to be another busy one!

Gone knitting!