Queen Bee Knits

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

Two Headbands Finished

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Queen Bee Knits

It’s Tuesday and it’s really cold here today but the sun is shining and that always makes my attitude better. I’ve got a Maine Charter Schools Commission business meeting to attend via Zoom this afternoon but the rest of the day is my oyster and I’ve chosen to start with a quick post about the two Petite Knits headbands that I’ve completed this weekend-ish.

I knitted the Weekend Headband for one of my “kids” in NYC. I’ve written about it before. I wanted to talk about the pattern itself here today. I found this pattern to be well-written and clear. From the cast on to the bind off, it was a solidly written pattern. I chose to make the small size (which may have been a mistake) and I may make the medium size, too, because I’m afraid the small is going to be too small for Sheldon. It’s way too small for my big fat head. Basically, this is a K1,P1 ribbed tube started with provisional stitches and ended with a graft. I made a mistake at the very beginning by knitting a round which threw off the entire pattern and the grafting at the end. I “fudged” it by knitting one round at the end and grafting the stitches with Kitchener stitch but I don’t love the way it looks bunched up at the join. I know it won’t show at all because this will be stretched out and it will be inside against the head but it’s not “right”. I think I have enough yarn to make the next size.

Next, I knit the Ingeborg headband for my daughter. This pattern wasn’t as well written and didn’t use traditional/accepted terminology for knitting patterns indicating to me that it was “rushed” to publish and perhaps wasn’t tech edited or even reviewed. When knitting Brioche stitch, it’s accepted to use the terms brk1 and this pattern didn’t use that. As a result, I was quite confused at the beginning of the pattern and had trouble with the odd number of stitches and keeping the pattern going. After several attempts (without the mohair yarn), I did figure it out but it took an inordinate amount of time to do so.

I held two strands of yarn together – one strand of worsted weight Berroco Ultra Alpaca, and one strand of Cascade Kid Seta lace weight mohair/silk – and the resulting fabric is super squishy and soft. I hope my daughter loves it. AND I hope it fits. I knitted it until it was just under 19.5″ or 50cm long and then grafted the stitches together. AGAIN, the directions were not clear and I removed the cotton yarn that I used for the provisional cast on before I should have but thankfully the stitches were pretty “stuck” where they were. I found a brilliant video about grafting brioche stitches online to help me remember how … it worked pretty well and I’m happy with the headband overall. And I love brioche knitting.

Today I’m committed to finishing (I hope) my Winter’s Finery shawl. I’ve gotten almost back to where I had to stop and frog back. I’m purposefully going slowly so that I don’t mess up the stitches so the lace looks good. So far, so good. I’m crossing my fingers and toes as I reach the last row of lace on the first chart.

There’s my Tuesday update on my two Petite Knits headbands … the Ingeborg needs a bit more time to be completely dry before I send it on to New York. I may have bought a denim jacket at Costco yesterday for my granddaughter to send as well. Oops! I couldn’t resist. I love shopping at Costco and just wish it was closer to our house. I know it was worth the trip because I got two pairs of glasses for about half of I would have paid at the eye doctor’s office. Worth the annual membership fee for sure

Gone knitting.

WIP Wednesday

Posted on February 5, 2025 by Queen Bee Knits

It’s a beautiful blue bird day here on the lake today. I have had a slow morning, a late wake-up after a middle of the night interruption by the smoke detector battery at 3:30am. I’ve been on meds for my sinus infection for 24 hours and hope to feel like a new woman by tomorrow. (No worries, right?)

I’ve been working away bit by bit on my Jelly Roll Blanket and yesterday came across a very pleasing combination of colors. I tried to take a photograph of them but it’s not coming out very true so you’ll have to just trust me. When I can knit outdoors again, maybe I can get a really good photo. Ha! I still have a basket and more of bits and bobs of fingering weight yarn scraps so I am planning to keep going. Maybe I’m half-way there? I knew this was going to be a long-term project.

I’ve picked up and am just finished grafting the seam on the headband I’m making for one of my daughter’s friends who is like another one of my kids. He’s an avid runner, even in the winter in New York City. For Christmas, I made Sheldon a pair of fingerless mitts for running in his signature shade of blue. I had an extra skein of the yarn and offered to make him a headband or hat. I decided on Petite Knits’ Weekend Headband which is a 1×1 rib, cast on with live stitches so that they can be grafted at the end. I made a mistake at the point of the cast on without realizing it until I was ready to graft in 1×1 rib and realized I had live stitches from the cast on that were all knit stitches. Hmm. What’s a knitter to do? I certainly wasn’t going to frog and begin again. So, my answer was to knit a round of stitches and graft them in regular Kitchener stitch. While the graft doesn’t look bad, it would look MUCH better in rib but since it’ll be on the inside of the headband, I think it’s passable. The headband is soaking now and will be blocked and sent off. I made the smaller size because he doesn’t have a big head. I hope it’ll work. I still have more yarn, just in case.

Meanwhile, my daughter has also asked for a new headband so once I’ve finished another project on the needles, I’ll have to find a pattern for hers. AND finish her sister’s fingerless mitts. Since I’ve been under the weather, I haven’t had the headspace to work on them.

My Winter’s Finery shawl has taken some backwards steps. I thought I had finished the lace through the last chart row and something didn’t line up. I frogged a few rows to see if I could fix it and just kept needing to go back again. So, finally, I decided just to go back to the start of the lace and start over and this time I won’t knit the lace while watching the final few episodes of Outlander. (If you haven’t watched Outlander, you’re really missing something quite wonderful. Part time-travel, part love story, part historical fiction, I have really enjoyed it.)

I started my “Bang Out a Sweater” sweater on January 31 and then it stalled. Seems I have all of my US 6 needles out in projects somewhere. I’m not sure how that could be but it seems to be true. SO … it’s sitting and waiting for me to finish my Winter’s Finery shawl or get the store for work tomorrow and buy an extra needle (or two). I can’t believe I have no US 6 needles that will work for this sweater. I will work on the shawl today … and if I can get close to 11 rows of lace knitted, I’ll finish the shawl first. If I don’t, I’ll buy new needles. Don’t tell my husband. Ha!

I have a sweater’s worth of so many yarns in my atelier. A rust-colored organic merino, a navy blue worsted wool, sport weight grey (with a red for some contrast/pattern), and an orange felted tweed and complimentary orange lace weight silk mohair. What do you think of an orange cardigan? I’m not getting a lot of knitting done this week because I don’t feel well, but I may have to cast on another something … the two hats for my client, the headband for my daughter. Something that doesn’t take too much headspace.

Gone knitting.

Tuesday Report

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Queen Bee Knits

It is a bit chilly today. When I woke up at 6:30am it was around 10 degrees and will only get up to 22-ish. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying a day to myself today. I spent the morning having coffee and relaxing as usual, cleaned up the kitchen and emptied the dishwasher, got dressed, and after my hubby went to work I started by Christmas puzzle. Turns our my puzzle attention span is very long because it was 3pm before I stopped and went upstairs to do some work.

It’s been a good start to the week. I got some baking done yesterday and my dear hubby made vegetarian chili at my request. I’ve decided that I don’t love meat much any more and I’m exploring vegetarian eating. I’m married to a guy who needs meat at every meal and who does the majority of our cooking … it will be interesting.

I baked some pecan rolls. These are wonderful because they don’t include any yeast so they’re quick and easy to make. No waiting for the dough to rise! The one thing I do is I don’t mix the toasted pecans in with the filling because it’s more difficult to spread. I spread the filling and then sprinkle the nuts on it and roll away! The recipe is Easy No-Yeast Cinnamon Rolls (New York Times Cooking). When it’s just the two of us, we don’t put the frosting on until we warm up a roll or two and then frost them … warming up frosted cinnamon rolls makes the frosting melt away. These are delicious!

I’ve been working on a couple of different projects. Yesterday I spent a good amount of time on my Hoodola by Laura Nelkin. I”ve gotten about a third of the rows knitted and I had to put it aside to eat a few Doritos so I picked up my New Year shawl, Winter’s Finery by Romi Hill. I had to go back before I went ahead because I had made a mistake on the spine somehow and decided that I couldn’t live with the way it looked especially since it’ll be at the top of the shawl. Frogged back a few rows and the reknit it. I even made a little bit of progress.

The lobster hat chart is complete and I’ve moved on to the sea weed chart for the crown. BUT before I started the crown I put the stitches on a strand of yarn and gave it a little bit of a steam block so I could see how they’ll look when finished. I’m happy to report that they’re going to be fantastic! I put the stitches back on my needles and continued knitting.

Today I spent hours working on my Christmas puzzle and then had to pay bills and my new walking pad was delivered so I had to try it out. Next I’ll be ordering a standing desk and I hope I can write these posts while I walk … preferably without getting hurt.

Spectacular Saturday – Coffee on the Porch

Posted on May 25, 2024 by Queen Bee Knits

What a beautiful morning! We spent the morning on the porch with our coffee and there was just enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away. And a bonus visit from my college roommate who’s in the area to attend Colby College’s graduation. I pulled a few weeds and have spent the last couple of hours or so in my atelier writing a newsletter for the store and getting organized for the week ahead. We have no particular plans for the Memorial Day weeekend but we hope to take our first boat ride in two years this afternoon.

The third time’s a charm. My Hermione’s Everyday Socks in the deeply stashed TOFUtsies yarn are done. Done! I have no idea why I had such a challenge with these socks. I’ve made so many pairs of socks for myself and they always fit. These just didn’t. The first sock I finished was too long. I frogged it back and reknit the toe … too short. Frogged it again and added a bit to the foot and knitted the toe and it (finally) is juuuuust right. The second sock was not a problem and as of yesterday afternoon, I have a pair. Good grief.

I still don’t know what the problem really is. I have my foot measurement that I’ve been using for years as 10 inches. So, I knitted to 8 inches for the foot and added the toe. Should have been perfect. What did end up being right was knitting the foot to 7.5 inches … I KNOW my feet didn’t shrink. Could it possibly be the fiber content of the yarn? TOFUtsies is a blend of 25% soysilk, 22.5% cotton and 2.5% chitin (from shrimp and crab shells and 50% wool. Can you see me shrugging my shoulders? I’m stumped. But they’re done.

I repaired my college roommate’s sweater and hat and have sent them back and I finished the little Zip Up a Baby Sweater. The two former items have been mailed off to Michigan and the sweater just needs a little something for the big brothers to go with it to Colorado. I’m getting there. You can read about these projects in my previous post.

Yesterday I worked on my “Longest Day” Emotional Support Chicken – I’ve promised to send one to one of the people who donate to my Longest Day fundraiser in June. I’ve promised to knit from sunup to sundown in honor of my mother who died in 2008 from Alzheimer’s Disease. My mother was a vibrant, active, involved mother, grandmother and friend to many. She loved animals, children and tennis. When she was still quite young, we started to notice that she would make the dressing for her potato salad twice, or she was buying her morning coffee (because she couldn’t remember how to use the coffee maker) and other little things. She was diagnosed in her mid-60s with Alzheimer’s. It was a devastating blow to all of us as we watched our mom withdraw into herself. In October of 2008, mom passed away. She was 76 years old but she’d been gone for ten years. We were all robbed. So, in her honor, I knit for a day and hope that the funds raised will find a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease once and for all so that no other family has to struggle like we all did.

She is going to be a beauty!!! I’m knitting her with two yarns with purple as the main color. All the details are on my Ravelry project page.

I’ve also been laundering sweaters and need to get the hats and mittens going … it’s that time of year to clean up and store the handknits for the summer season. Moths or their larvae love to feed on the dead skin cells that hang out in our wooly items. I have been really lucky that we have not had an infestation … yet. It takes me several days of lovely weather to get the hats and mittens done and several more for our sweaters but it will get done and I’ll start today.

Next week I’m off to my brother and sister-in-love’s house in Marblehead, MA for a few days. I’m on grand-mothering duty while Sylvie’s mother is working in Boston. She’s performing with the Boston Pops on Wednesday and Thursday in a show called from D-Day to VE Day. I’m sure we will all be ready for our normal lives to begin again post babysitting but we will also have the fullest hearts and lots of new memories. I hope we’ll have some beautiful weather like today so we can play outdoors!

Gone knitting.

Hermione’s Everyday Socks and a Full Moon

Posted on February 26, 2024 by Queen Bee Knits

I’m hoping that now that the full moon has passed that I can sleep a little better and a little longer. Living close to the land, we seem to go to bed and wake up with the sun. We don’t have a lot of curtains and blinds and those that we do have aren’t usually closed. So … the sunrise is at around 6:30am and we are almost always up before that. The moon last night and tonight was absolutely gorgeous, though.

I have another FO! I finished my Hermione’s Everyday Socks tonight. I stayed up late (it’s after 9pm, all!) I loved this pattern. I loved knitting a different sock pattern (but I do still adore the Yankee Knitter pattern) and I loved knitting a different heel pattern. I did make a little mistake on the first heel – I lost my rhythm for a few rows but I let it go – but the second sock has a perfect heel. I think I’m going to have to wear these socks tomorrow and see how my feet like the texture of the socks.

The first picture is the textured leg. This is a simple four round pattern that you can memorize without any issues. I promise. The heel is a slip stitch heel but the slipped stitches aren’t stacked and so there’s some extra thickness where you need it BUT it’s not as visible as the more traditional slip stitch heel flap.

A year or so ago, I realized that I had filled my sock drawer with hand knit socks. But most of my socks were patterned and there were no plain ones. (Ha! Ha! Plain! There’s nothing plain about even a solid color pair of hand knit socks.) I have now made three pairs of solid color socks for myself and two of them are in this yarn. I really like the CoopKnits Sock Yeah! yarn. It’s a 75/35 merino/nylon blend in a fingering weight. I bought this yarn in a collection when I invested in learning more about knitting with A Year of Techniques. I’ve written about it here before. It was a great investment and I loved trying yarns that I wouldn’t have easy access to here in Maine. Since the yarns all came from the UK, they were different than most that we have at MY LYS.

These socks will be a good addition to my sock drawer and I hope that I love them as much as I love the vanilla socks that I made in the light gray colorway. I’m going to cast on another pair of socks tomorrow to take with us on our travels to my nephew’s wedding this week. They’re so easy to travel with. I just have to decide which pattern I am going to try. Maybe the Crazy Sock Lady’s pattern? Not sure which one … yet!

It’s late so I’m signing off but no more knitting tonight!

FOs and Re-Dos

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Queen Bee Knits

We are having some snow again today and we had some ice on Thursday. It’s winter in Maine and I have to say that I am a happy girl. I love the winter and I love the snow. I feel like the media has been really good at scaring the pants off of us and now we are told to stay home even at times when the driving isn’t bad. I headed out to work on Thursday after we got a quarter inch of ice and I had no trouble getting out of our driveway or getting to the store … and as my car slipped by the back door (ha! ha!) I decided that I’d park out front where nobody would have such a good opportunity to slip down the hill and into my car. I’m so grateful for my cleat-thingys that keep me upright on ice.

I’ve just finished sewing the perfect buttons on my Nancy’s Vest. It is finished. I wore it to work today buttonless and I love the way it fits. I also love the weight of the yarn and it’s soft and just enough gray and brown all at the same time.

So, now I have two vests … and there are going to be more of them in my future.

I pulled my sleeve out of my Women’s Favorite Genser again. In its first iteration, the sleeve decreases were too far apart and the sleeve would have been too long and the stitch count off for the colorwork before the cuff ribbing. On the second iteration, I realized that the increases were too close together which made the sleeve too narrow too soon. Now on my third try, I’m decreasing “in the middle” of the other two and I think it’s looking good. Cross your fingers.

I’m working on my Cooked Lobstah socks and my Double Thick Hat. They’re both easy patterns that I can nearly knit with my eyes closed. I may have mentioned that I hate myself in hats. The only ones that I wear are saggy baggy hats that fall down over my eyes. I only wear them if I have to go out with wet hair in the winter or if I am spending time outside like when I clean off my car or help shovel. But that’s the long way of saying that even though I am making this hat for me, I may decide that I hate it. AND I hope I don’t hate it but it’s more than possible. BUT I love the yarn! I’m knitting with Juniper Moon Farm’s Herriot Fine. I had two hanks of it in my stash, they were a gift from our KFI salesman at the store. He always sent something for “the girls”. (ha! ha!) Herriot Fine is absolutely gorgeous to work with. It’s soft and comes in lots of pretty colors. I have a blue and a creamy oatmeal color. Not thrilling colors but if I love the hat, I can worry about different colors later.

And the socks are just my “run-of-the-mill” socks using Yankee Knitter’s pattern #29. I love the pattern and have knit so many socks over the years that I practically know the pattern by heart. This crazy colorway that I bought at the Maine Fiber Frolic years (and years) ago. These socks will be a gift, as with the blue striped pair that I just finished.

I have a brand new knitter in my afternoon knitting class and today’s storm kept almost everyone home. It gave me an opportunity to help H. remember how to cast on and how to purl so she can try to make her first pair of mittens. She picked up purling really quickly and I feel pretty good sending her home to practice and I told her that if it doesn’t go well, it’s all good. Consider it an opportunity to practice! It’s a ribbed cuff and it can be frogged and re-knit and I told her that I’m re-knitting a sleeve for the third time.

Knitting offers us the opportunity to get used to making mistakes. I used to get frustrated and annoyed by making mistakes but now I can take them in stride and begin again. Forgiving yourself (and others) is a skill that is learned over time and knitting has helped me be more accepting of myself and my flaws. It’s also taught me to be more flexible and forgiving with others. I’m grateful for my sticks and string for having added so much joy to my life but I am also grateful for the lessons that it’s taught me. Life is good.

Gone knitting.

Nancy’s Vest – An Easy Challenge

Posted on January 8, 2024 by Queen Bee Knits

The lake was covered with untouched snow this morning but there was no visible sunrise. Clouds were thick, there was only a glimpse of pink at the north end of the lake. (It did get better later in the day when the sun was shining briliantly.

I’ve wanted to write about my Nancy’s Vest. My co-worker friend, Glenda, and I are both knitting it so I’ve had a bit of “heads up” which has been helpful. BUT even with her help, I’ve had to stop and frog back three inches of stockinette stitches because I forgot that I was warned to read ahead. Ha! Ha! That’ll show me. Once again, my knitting is keeping me humble and even simple knitting projects can be a challenge.

Nancy’s Vest is by Carol Sunday. It’s knit in one piece from the bottom up and the only finishing is at the shoulders. I chose Manos del Uruguay’s Milo yarn, a sport weight blend of merino and linen (380 yards to 100 grams). I am enjoying the yarn. It’s not at all splitty and it’s very soft. Every once in a while it does get sticky but that’s likely the linen strands and a little bit of vegetable matter. I bought the Manchester colorway, a brownish gray or a grayish brown color. A dark neutral and one that I think I will wear a lot. The vest is a little bit cropped and I’ll likely wear it over my white blouses with slacks (to work) and maybe over a dress.

My first “mistake” was due to not reading ahead. I’d made a lot of progress a couple of Fridays ago at my knitting class. Almost all of it had to be frogged because I forgot to split the vest into two front sides and a back after 12 1/2 inches. Oops.

Today I finished the left front side.

The construction is fun and keeps it interesting with some different techniques. The edging is knitted at the same time as knitting the vest. There are eight stitches for the button placket and button hole placket and they’re knitted at the same time as the vest. The button holes are a different technique that i’ve not done before. Basically, a one-row button hole, slipping stitches and binding them off and then turning your work to (cable) cast on new stitches and close the button hole. Once at the armpits, decreases on either side of the front are made and you really have to be careful here to read ahead. I nearly made a second big mistake, but caught it in time to call it a minor mistake and I only had to frog a few rows. I’ve used my knitCompanion app to keep track of all the different decreases and row counts but I could also see the wisdom of creating a chart of “changes” to be made on each row. I marked each of the decreases on the neck side with a marker so that I could easily count them. It’s worked well (and my stitch count has been spot on!

You are asked to run a “life line” to mark the garment when you reach the armpits. I use dental floss … not peppermint … because it’s slippery and thin and almost always stands apart from the yarn. It makes it really easy to measure the length of the front piece. Great bit of instruction.

I’m now working on the right front side and the second one is going more quickly than the first. I kept track of exactly where I left off when I separated the three sections in the notes section of knitCompanion so that I knew when I attached the yarn to work on the right side I would know it was one WS row before I needed to decrease on the neck edge. Once again, I forgot that I had immediate decreases on the arm hole side, too, and had to frog back one row plus enough stitches to decrease there. That was a simple “fix” thank goodness.

The cable decrease (left and right) are a fun and new-to-me decrease. It’s very attractive on the garment, too. I like it. I’m at the point on the right front where I have arm hole side decreases every four rows and neck side decreases every six rows so I’m being careful to count my rows and mark them. So far so good. I’d love to finish the right side today or tomorrow so I can get to work on the back after work on Thursday.

I’ll report more as I make more progress but for now …

Gone knitting.

September Already?!

Posted on September 2, 2023 by Queen Bee Knits

This photo was the second one I took this morning. But this one was the one that made me smile the widest! At the left you can see a fisherman zooming into the frame and at the top right, a hummingbird, getting ready to land on the feeder that’s just out of sight. Ha! That almost never happens.

It’s a beautiful Saturday here on the lake and I’ve been trying to wrap up a bunch of stuff so that we can vacation next week with all of my kids and their families. Dogs are included, too, of course. We’ll be eight adults, one baby and six dogs. It’s always a full house and it’s always fun. We are both … dare I say all … looking forward to a few days together.

So, this morning I’ve made a list of Maine State Reps who represent all of our students at Maine Arts Academy. We are having a ribbon cutting and open house celebration in September and we should always invite those who represent our students. And then I wrote the newsletter for tomorrow for the store. I included in tomorrow’s newsletter that I’m not writing one the following week … vacation rules. I have only one meeting to Zoom into while we’re away and I intend to be present for the kids, the dogs and the granddaughter!

This morning I steam blocked my two finished mini Nordic jumpers for our Advent calendar. I have one more to go. ONE!!! My intent is to do that after I’m done writing this post. Here are 22 and 23.

Twenty-three is the one that has two different white yarns. One is Patagonia Organic Merino, a wooly wool. The other is a superwash something that was in my left-overs bins (yes, you read that right, I have bins of left-overs. I can’t throw yarn away!) I am ok with it the way it turned out. Do I wish that I had had just a little bit more of the Patagonia? Yes. Did I let it ruin my life? Not even close. It’ll do. I’ve cast on #24 and I can probably get it done today. Certainly, I can get it done this weekend.

Yesterday I decided to return a skein of cotton that I had bought to make a bib for my granddaughter because I found a skein of the same cotton in a different colorway that will be just fine for a bib. So, while I was teaching class yesterday and for a while after, I got the bib done.

I also knitted an apple for the fall decorations for the store window. We’re decorating the window (and adding the stems to the apples) on Monday morning. I’m going to try to finish another one or two before then. Cross your fingers. And then as I was cleaning out cupboards and bins, I found two skeins of Plymouth Encore yarn that was gifted to me and I remembered a little sweater that I had the pattern for and (duh!) I cast on a little last minute sweater for my granddaughter. AND found myself knitting the wrong size after an hour or so … 18 months won’t fit her for ages so I frogged it and re-started the 12 month size which may or may not fit her right now. We’ll find out on vacation.

This morning I made my “granola” recipe that I’ve been making for decades and forgot to add the honey which makes the granola more like muesli … it’s not chunks at all, it’s more like loose cereal. I’m sure it’ll taste fine and it’s got less sugar. I also made a batch of blueberry muffins. I may make another dozen tomorrow because the family goes through these like crazy and they will stay fresh in the freezer if they don’t eat them right away.

Dear hubby has been to the dump, mowed the lawn and is napping. This is a perfect chance for me to do a little bit of stitching. Have I talked about the special quilt I’m making? More to follow.

Gone stitching (not sure if with knitting or sewing needles).

Favorite Pullover for Women

Posted on August 22, 2023 by Queen Bee Knits

This is a photo of the pattern that I am currently working on. Another WIP that has been lallygagging in my studio on the shelf while I did all sorts of other little things. I’m “forcing” myself to finish the sweaters (especially the sweaters but there are others) that I have started and never finished … and maybe to have a look at yarn that I’ve bought for sweaters that I’ve not yet started … but I digress.

Favorite Pullover for Women is only in the book Norwegian Knitting Designs 90 Years Later which I purchased a year or so ago on Amazon. It’s a big book full of beautiful patterns. I was taking a traditional Norwegian “genser” class online and this was one of the patterns suggested for beginners like me. (Not a beginner knitter but a beginner who has never knitted a traditional Norwegian genser.) I loved this sweater at first sight.

I bought the yarn from Knitography Farm (who was also teaching the class.) And it’s a lovely sport weight 100% rustic wool straight from the farm in Norway. I bought the traditional colors for the yoke which are all shades of gray – light, medium and dark – and the purple for the body and the pops of color in the yoke and sleeves. The yarn is called “Ask Norsk Ullgarn” (100 grams/ 315 meters).

Saturday night I was knitting away and was really close to finishing the colorwork/stranded section of the yoke. I literally got to within the last three stitches of the second-to-last round and I was short ONE STITCH! One!!! So, back I went to look at the last round because all the other rounds had worked in the pattern, and voila! one dropped stitch was popping its little medium gray head out of the sweater with its tongue sticking out at me. Ugh. That meant that I needed to rip back almost the entire last round … because, of course, the stitch had to be within the first 30 or so stitches of the round not the last 30. But because frogging is part of every knitters life and it keeps us knitting “experts” humble, I frogged all the way back and re-knit the last round and the stitches were perfect.

Yesterday morning I returned to my Favorite Pullover and finished the yoke and it’s really beautiful. I love it. This afternoon I’ve finished my increase round under the stranded colorwork and now I can just knit for a couple of inches until I hit the point at which I can separate the sleeves from the body of the sweater.

I will be trying it on before that time so that I know if it’s long enough for my body and with any luck, that’ll happen later this week. There are a lot of little stitches to one round now … I’m at a stitch count of just shy of 400 stitches … 396 to be exact. So every round is almost 400 stitches and there are likely four or five rounds to the inch so I have a couple of thousand stitches to stitch between now and then. Our car ride to have our TSA pre-check appointments tomorrow should be helpful in that vein.

In the foreground of the photo is the neck of the sweater (or the top) and the purple is at the bottom but I’m knitting from the top to the bottom, I hope that make sense. But you can see the unblocked splendor of this pattern and how nicely the different grays play together – even in my lousy light.

The inside is actually just as interesting as the outside. And I’ve photographed it from the same view.

So, the easy (and boring, to be honest) part is ahead of me where I just knit and knit and knit around to where I split the arms from the body and then I’ll just knit around until the body is complete. I have another sweater that’s in the queue that has some complicated cables that I may have to work on, too, when I get tired of stockinette stitch. We’ll see. I’m really determined to get some projects finished before the end of the year. This is one of them. My Arne and Carlos Advent Jumpers are another… also a pattern from Norway and Norwegian designs. I’ve only got five or six to complete and that needs to happen before December 1 so we can fill them and use them!

Gone knitting.

Taking Life (not so) Seriously

Posted on July 3, 2023 by Queen Bee Knits

This is pretty funny that I’m writing another post (again) this week. This must be a world record, right? I’m going to tell you another story about me that I hope will make you laugh as it did me AND I hope it will make anyone feeling like their knitting skills are still “not good enough” will kick that notion to the curb.

Yesterday was a fairly miserable weather day. Damp and rainy and suitable for ducks and loons, only. We’ve had a lot of days like this in Maine this year. I was working my way up the front of my Lane’s Island Pullover by VersaciKnits and was getting excited because the end was near and I was eager to get to the pockets. I had knitted a few of the shoulder decreases when I realized that I had too many stitches and had another glance at the pattern. I had skipped over four repeats of the single decrease at the neck edge. Ugh!!! I looked at the neck edge and I pondered my choices – just forget about it and continue on, frog back to the decreases and do it “right”, or something else. I decided to do it “right” and frog back to the last decrease and reknit so that the neck looks more balanced when I go to pick up the collar stitches (I assume I’m going to do this. I haven’t read ahead on my pattern.) So, that was my first challenge last night.

I also realized that I had knitted almost all of the three balls of yarn that I had purchased for the sweater. Another glance at the pattern and I realized that I needed three balls EACH of two colors (a total of SIX) and I had bought three balls of the single color I wanted my sweater to be. For the love of … Pete?! Thank goodness I work in a yarn shop. This morning I went in and solved the problem by adding two balls of yarn to my layaway bag just in case and buying one more ball which should be enough for the two sleeves and any finishing that I may need to do.

It’s at times like this, after almost 40 years of knitting, that I find knitting at once humbling and hysterical. Knitting has taught me to laugh at myself. And I mean a real laugh-out-loud belly laugh. It’s always when I think I know what I’m doing that I tend to make the silliest mistakes. This one is one for the ages. (Here’s another one!) I’ve been teaching knitting for nearly 20 years and knitting for almost 40 and I still make plenty of rookie mistakes. In fact, the designer commented on my Instagram post last night, “I would say it was a rookie mistake, but we know you are NOT a rookie!!!” Truer words were never spoken. I’m not a rookie but I can still make a rookie mistake. AND that’s ok. I can … and did, laugh at myself and move on.

Last night I finished the first pocket and put the stitches for the second pocket on the needle, ready to attack it today. I’m one stitch short. It’s lucky I’m an “expert knitter” because I seem unable to count. II’m laughing again. HaHaHa.

Gone knitting.