Tag Archives: Queen Bee Knits

From my Northern Atelier

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A dog on my lap, and knitting in my northern atelier … this is the best place I could be today. The sun is shining and there’s a gentle breeze blowing, the first laundry load of the season is hanging on the line. Life is good!

Thought I would catch you up with my knitting projects that are currently on my needles … they are growing and I have a bunch planned for this summer. I even brought a huge L.L. Bean bag full of yarn with patterns for most of them up with us from Florida. I had thought to knit all that up before buying any more yarn … well … it was a good try!

#1 – Log Cabin(-ish) Baby Blanket – I’ve never knitted one of these before and having seen a couple on the Internet, I decided to give it a shot. The yarn is an acrylic yarn because baby blankets have to be super washable and somewhat ordinary. But the blanket is coming along and almost finished. It’s pretty cute and I hope my customer likes it. After this, one more baby blanket will complete the order.

Log Cabin(-ish) Baby Blanket (Queen Bee Knits Original)

#2 – My tunic … which takes a back seat to “real work” is growing a bit since I last photographed it. I still love the color but the yarn is really splitty … maybe why it was wearing such a discounted price? Whatever … when it’s done, I think I’ll love it.

Dropps Tunic (Pattern #111-21) in Berroco Pure Pima (color 2243)

#3 – Fingerless gloves. These poor things have been sitting in their project bag minding their own business for way too long. I started them last fall and then put them aside because orders were flowing in and needed to be a priority (not that I’m complaining, that’s a great problem to have!) So, maybe now it’s time to pay some attention to them and get the second mitt knitted up, attach a couple of thumbs and send them to their intended recipient.

Vancouver Fog Fingerless Gloves in Cascade Yarns Lana Banbu (lot 93979 col 02)

#4 – One of the yarns that I bought in Gloucester is being knitted into a simple baby sweater and I’m totally in love with the yarn and the sweater (and the baby, too). The woman at Coveted Yarns told me that when you knit up the yarn it almost becomes a neutral and I’m starting to think she was right – despite the bright rainbow colors of the hand-dyed yarn. Hopefully, I’ll have enough to make a sweater and a hat or booties … but I am way ahead of the baby (who is not fully cooked yet!)

Knitting Pure & Simple Bulky Baby Pullover in Flat Rocks Yarns Whirlpool (#28 Grateful Threads)

#5 – Cooked Lobster Claw mittens – this my first original pattern that I will soon be adding to my shop on Ravelry. I have had two test knitters give the pattern a go and they’ve given me some wonderful feedback and a few photos of their projects. I’m happy to report that they’re really great looking and I think knitters will love it! I have one pair and one mitten knitted – so, unless I can sell single mittens, I had best make a matching one!

Oops! That's the real thing!

Ha! Well, now you know what I’m up to … I leave you with a photo of my laundry drying (yes, seriously!)

Gone Knitting!

Hot! Lobster Claws … fresh out of the pot

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Hot, hot, hot weekend! We’re having June weather in May. It’s too hot to go outside and I dream of having a car with auto-start so I could get the A/C going before I have to leave. Are you figuring out that I dislike the heat? Even our back “sun room” is super hot … by the time I’m awake, it’s time to get out of there to my cooler Atelier!

My inside activities have been cleaning up and knitting … and knitting planning! I have several original patterns that I’ve written and have been “afraid” to put out for test knitting. Partly because I didn’t know how to do it … but I’ve found a Ravelry group that does test knitting and as soon as I knit my patterns one more time, off they’re going!

"Cooked Lobster" Mittens

First one to be leaving the fold is the “Cooked Lobster” mittens for children. This is one that I wrote after having bought a pattern that didn’t look like lobster claws at all! I love my pattern, though – complete with the knitted band … looks like it’s just out of the pot! And if it was just out of the pot, it would be steaming hot!

Gone knitting (in my cooler Atelier!)

 

Proof – on the needles and newly finished

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Here are the photos, as promised!

Socks for my Boy!

Socks for my boy in Trekking XXL (75% super wash wool, 25% polyamid). This yarn might be the most wonderful sock yarn ever but knitting with it has been a nightmare! The center-pull ball has been in knots from the first pull. Grrr! What a pain in the neck (or needles!) But the socks are looking good and the boy has asked for them (the third pair!) Promised for graduation in mid-June.

New yarn arrival!

Yes, you can ooooh and ahhhh!

I bought the Berroco Pure Pima and Cascade Yarns Fixation for two projects. The Berroco is for a cotton sweater (sleeveless tunic) for moi. The Fixation is for a pair or two of baby socks … trying a new pattern!

Also FO –

HUGE socks ... soon to be felted!

Two super huge socks all ready to be felted. These are for my Etsy shop at the end of the summer. One lavender and one multi-colored, fall colors (green, orange, brown, purple, burgundy) both will be felted to size and be ready to go to some cold tootsies!

Flower Power Dish Cloth

Also trying to use up some of the cotton yarn that I’ve been carrying around. This green turned into a dish cloth. Perhaps it will live in my kitchen (replacing the icky ones that are there) or perhaps it will be matched with a couple more and sold in my shop. We’ll see what I decide.

Cooked Lobster Mittens (a Queen Bee Knits Original Pattern)

Since I have a bunch of wonderful merino wool that I bought in Maine last summer, I decided to resurrect my original pattern and make some more Cooked Lobster Mittens. I love these cute little mittens for kids. I’ll be knitting up several small pairs (and knitting up the bands for the claws, too) for my shop. One down … if you want a pair in a specific size, best to request because I know they’ll fly off the shelves!

Meantime, a friend of mine and her partner welcomed to the world a beautiful baby girl yesterday. I’m thinking a pair of those lovely cabled baby booties needs to be knit up and sent to West Palm Beach! What yarn to use? What yarn to buy?

Oh, the challenges this Queen Bee faces every day! (The last was said in sarcasm … next, in all truth and sincerity) How lucky I am!

Got to wait for my camera battery to charge so I can post the pictures. For now, I’m gone knitting!

Repairing Knitting

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I’ve designed a baby blanket.

Long story short, I loved the blue color and the price of the yarn that I saw a while ago at JoAnn. I bought it and decided that rather than follow an existing pattern, I’d design one and add it to my Queen Bee Knits originals.

I’m on a seed stitch kick! I love seed stitch. I love the texture and I love the way the stitch feels when I am knitting. So, my blanket needed to have a seed stitch border. I also like “simple” for babies and didn’t want too many “holes” or lace in the blanket because baby fingers and toes get stuck in them. So, for the body of the blanket, I chose to do a simple stockinette stitch with a tiny lace row between the two.

I got the entire blanket finished and held it up … and there it was. A stitch right smack dab in the middle of the blanket had split and only part of the yarn formed the stitch and it looked like there was a gaping hole in the center of the blanket. UGH! (I think I may have said something I’d rather not type here!) So, because of the seed stitch and the lace, it wasn’t possible to drop one stitch and “zip” down to the mess. So, I “frogged” the seed stitch top border and the lace row and then zipped down to the mess and, with my trusty pink plastic crochet hook, stitched my way back up to the top. One row of lace and a few rows more of seed stitch border and it’ll be done again. This time without a hole in the middle.

I love that when I see a problem with knitting today that I can laugh at my mistakes and then solve the problem without a lot of drama. I love that there is relatively little drama in my life today – and when there is drama, it’s usually something that’s out of my control.

I’ll be publishing the pattern as a free pattern very soon. Just have to write it down!

Gone knitting (and finishing the blanket!) Photos coming soon!

Jane Fonda On Being Perfect vs. Whole

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Almost every day I try to take a little time to “wander around” on the Internet. The World Wide Web. It’s amazing how much time I can spend going from site to site without a clue about where I’ll land. And I love how much I learn! This morning, I started on email and then Facebook and then somehow got to Pinterest and then to OWN (Oprah’s new foray) where I found this video “Masterclass” by Jane Fonda that really resonated with me – being raised to value what others thought about how and who I should be.

http://www.oprah.com/common/omplayer_embed.html?article_id=35168

This started me thinking about myself (since I’m on a path to self-awareness and discovery) and I thought about a session that I had with my therapist yesterday in which she pointed out something that I had totally missed.

As I’ve chronicled here on this blog before, I have been “unemployed” in the real world, anyway, for two years. All the time I’ve been applying for jobs in our area here in Florida and have recently expanded my search to other areas around the country – places where I have some contact with friends or family so I don’t have to start all over again … well, at least I hope not. Anyway, I’ve, to date, been unsuccessful but remain hopeful.

The View from my Desk

Yesterday I was sharing that I had cleaned off my bulletin board and was going to make it a vision board (in so many terms) of what I wanted to have more of in my life. I had taken all of the clutter down and only left up a few things that I really liked … a bee postcard from my French daughter, a “Bee Happy” card from a Cincinnati friend, a “Please Knit Now” postcard my knitting teacher brought to our Maine group from England, a page from an old Rockwell book with our family crest, a note from a happy client, a great bee card that I found in Maine this past summer and another card from a co-worker in Ohio. I also have my lobster claw mitts and a couple of Dove chocolate wrappers – “Live your dreams” and “Do all things with love”.

My therapist was nearly laughing at me. “You’ve already done it,” she said. I was clueless. In essence, she told me that I had already put up things that were my vision – bees and knitting … that the universe is telling me to follow my passion with knitting and Queen Bee Knits and perhaps even suggesting that I should forego more job hunting and focus on what’s right in front of my face … Queen Bee Knits. I was in tears (happy tears, but tears none-the-less).

I have several ideas that I need to follow up on that should bring me some additional revenue streams and I have at least one idea for a book that I’d like to write. Perhaps that’s a good way for me to go … it’s terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. But if I can realize that nobody has to be perfect (as Jane did), then I am going to give it a try! I’m still searching for the “perfect” idea but I am so desiring the idea of being whole.

Gone knitting!