Queen Bee Knits

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Sunday Update – an FO and almost another

Posted on September 20, 2026 by Queen Bee Knits

Saturday, September 19, 2026 … Yesterday

I was up early yesterday because I had to be at a meeting in Palermo, Maine by 9:00am which is early to get going on a Saturday unless I have to open the store. Even then, the store opens at 9:30 and is 20 minutes away. Palermo is 45 minutes away. This morning, Sunday, I didn’t even get outside to take a photo because it was quite cool and we stayed inside (I got my afghan out of the basket this morning.) We have already run an errand which entailed new slippers for me and some organizing of my yarn bins because I was looking for new gnome knitting yarn and I need some sport weight for part of the project. I think I found what I need … we’ll see when I start knitting the project on September 3 (or 4 because I’ll be out of town the 2 & 3 without much knitting time.)

Anyway, a knitting update. I have a FO! I finished my teeny tiny sock earrings, Los Lobe Hose, knitted up in fingering weight yarn with 0000 DPNs. The needles are smaller than toothpicks and I’m not sure I really enjoyed the knitting but they’re awfully cute to wear.

Los Lobe Hose in On the Round scrappy leftovers

I’m going to be forced to make another pair of these with Christmas yarn and maybe a Halloween/Fall pair, too. Stinking cute!

I’m making good progress, too, with my daughter’s Levitate Wrap. I have reached the bottom of the body of the sweater and next will be picking up sleeve stitches and knitting sleeves. I love the fabric of this sweater and it’s knitting up relatively quickly on US 10 needles. My daughter chose the medium size because she wants it boxy and I’m eager to see how the rest of the knitting goes. Right now the measurement from the middle of the back to the bottom is eighteen inches which seems very cropped to me. I will need to review the pattern before I finish off the bottom of the body. It’s always interesting knitting a sweater for someone whose full body measurements you don’t have … and ask me why when I had my daughter at the beach I didn’t measure the length of her arms, for example or ask her how long she wants the sweater to be? Yeah, well I don’t have an answer but now I’m thinking I missed an opportunity for sure.

I’m also working on my Make Mine a Double sweater. I have reached the bottom of the body and knitted the ribbing and now I’ll go back and knit the sleeves. I had begun the sleeves (I think I may have mentioned this on my last post) but realized too late that I was knitting with a US 9 rather than the required US 10. Good grief! So, I’ve frogged most of the two sleeves and will likely frog back a little bit more and reknit with the correct size needle. I thought I had the US 10 in my project bag. I was wrong. Thank goodness knitting is forgiving.

I am super close to another FO. My vanilla socks (photo below was taken a couple of days ago) in the self-striping yarn are getting really close to the toe. I have really enjoyed knitting these socks and I do love Must Stash yarn’s self-striping sock yarns. The base yarn is lovely to work with and the stripes, well, they’re fabulous!

I love that the yarn comes in two parts and each is the same so your socks match pertectly. Most of the time I don’t really mind if patterns don’t match up. I just don’t want a lot of extra yarn left over … but these days I’m knitting shorter legs (from the cuff to the heel flap) and I am finding I do have leftovers. I think I may be knitting some scrappy socks again soon.

We have been working at putting our gardens to bed for the winter. Yesterday when I was at my meeting the hubby chopped the living daylights out of one of our Hydrangeas. I hope it comes back. In his defense, we’d let it get HUGE and it was blocking our kitchen window which we like to see out of and it was rubbing against the house. The garden at the side of the house was put in ten years ago and some of the bushes have been really happy here and have grown too big for their spots. We have some work to do and neither one of us really loves to garden nor are we particularly knowledgeable. We’ll figure it out in good time. We also have a porch floor that needs restaining and a few window screens that need washing along with our big front windows that are always dirty … thanks to my mother for making me very attuned to dirty windows. LOL

I have holiday knitting on the mind lately. I spoke yesterday with the granddaughter who knows what she wants and asked her about a Santa hat (or an elf hat) and she doesn’t want red and white … she wants pink and purple stripes! In my reorganizing I found some purple Cascade 220 Superwash and I’ll get some pink in the same yarn when I go to work on Thursday and make that for her. I’ve always knitted a Christmas sweater for her as well … maybe this year’s will be a pink and purple striped elf sweater? I’ve found a couple of cute sweaters but she much prefers cardigans because she can put them on herself.

I made three dozen muffins this week (for my meeting yesterday and for my hubby, too). I found a new pumpkin muffin recipe to try and made my old stand-by blueberry and banana nut, too. I took a dozen and a half with me and left the same in the freezer. They were all good.

Tonight we’re heading to the Opera House to see Graham Nash in concert. We have a lot of shows in our little town and it’s time we start paying attention … it’s fun to get out now and again!

Gone knitting!

Home Again … a Wonderful Vacation

Posted on September 16, 2026 by Queen Bee Knits

We’re baaack! We had the most wonderful week in Weekapaug, RI. We were joined by all three of my kids and their families. Seven adults, five dogs and one granddaughter were in residence for all or part of the week and we had a wonderful time. I’ve written about why we vacation there before but I’ll briefly say that my mother rented a house there for the month of July when my kids were little and before she had Alzheimer’s Disease. After she passed away I asked my kids what they’d like to do with the little bit of money that I have to draw from her IRA each year and the answer was Weekapaug. We found a wonderful house to rent after labor day and it’s turned into a weekly vacation that we all love! We spend time at the beach, cook our meals (or most of them), spend time at Watch Hill at the Annex eating peach iced cream (my mom’s favorite flavor) and this year our granddaughter was big enough to ride the Flying Horses for the first time.

And now we’re home with smiles on our faces and more memories made.

I’ve been working on getting everything washed and put away so that I can go back to work tomorrow. I’ve run three loads of laundry (one more to wash the octopus costume) and made three dozen muffins (pumpkin, banana nut and wild Maine blueberry) to take to a meeting on Saturday morning. I’ll take half with me and leave half at home for us.

My knitting has suffered while we were away. I think I may have knitted more on the drive home yesterday than for the whole week we were in Rhode Island. But I read a lot of books, played all sorts of imaginative games (that the granddaughter made up) and listened to songs and stories galore. One lovely addition this year was an overnight visit by my brother and his wife. We all loved having them join us even briefly!

I’ve taking my Make Mine a Double sweater off the needles so I could work on my daughter’s Levitate Wrap cardigan while I had her to try on as I went. I added three rows of stockinette stitch to add to the length before I connected the fronts and back and that seems to have made all the difference in the way it fit. I am now working my way down the body of the sweater and increasing for the overlapped fronts. I’m using Juniper Moon Farm Patagonia organic merino held double with Berroco Aerial silk mohair lace. The fabric is really nice to work with but I find I do “miss” the lace every once in a while (and have to go back to make sure it’s not just hanging out in front of the fabric. Regardless, it’s knitting up pretty quickly and I think I will probably have to make it a little bit longer which means added rows. I don’t remember if I made the row gauge. That might be a good idea to look at right now so I can decide how to best add length if needed.

A while ago I bought a hank of self-striping sock yarn because a good self-striping sock yarn is difficult to find. I bought it from Must Stash yarn because they’ve got a remarkable base and their colorways are fantastic! I’ve made it to the foot of the first sock. It’s a fun knit for sure. I’m knitting a mixed pattern with details pulled from Yankee Knitter and Summer Lee and it’ll be fun to see how they fit. I really like knititng socks on US1 needles (I’m using DPNs this time.)

I haven’t taken any new photos of anything knitting but I will and I’ll post again on Sunday!

Gone knitting.

Spam Spam Spam Spam

Posted on September 5, 2026 by Queen Bee Knits

It’s a bit cloudy and a bit chilly this Saturday morning! I am happy for both. We desperately need the rain here in Maine as most of our state is under drought conditions. We have a well so it’s a serious issue that needs our awareness. We have stopped watering the gardens and have put our water conservation efforts in the house on high! We’ll be fine. Hopefully.

This week I got several lovely, thoughtful comments on several posts from a “man” named John Smith. I almost always check profiles before accepting comments on my blog and I am grateful that I stopped to look … it’s an AI platform and, I suspect, an AI response which, upon my review was more a summary of what I posted than a thoughtful human response. I won’t approve them and I may choose to mark them as spam. Progress is a double-edged sword.

I’ve had a busy and quite wonderful week! I started out the week with meetings, meetings, meetings and then finished the week with my teaching gig. In between was a lot of house cleaning, knitting, some stitching and even some baking. I was able to chat with almost all of our kids and am looking forward to seeing some of them soon.

I have a FO! One of my wonderful students pointed out Summer Lee’s new sock pattern to me and I loved it so much I immediately went to my stash to find some yarn to cast on. I have loved knitting these socks (despite the mistake I made on the first round of the first sock.) I am wearing them today because without the sun it’s a bit chilly and my feet are very happy. I knit these in some stashed Socks Yeah! yarn in a pale pink colorway. The lace repeat was easy enough to memorize and I am tickled with the result. I really like the shorter leg length even if that leaves me with more bits and bobs of fingering weight yarn.

Once I finished my Reverie Socks, I immediately went back to my stash to find some more yarn. I forgot that I bought this self-striping yarn that is packaged in two half-skeins so that the socks are identical. My husband had already gone to bed when I started caking up the first hank and (despite the fact that he can’t ever hear me) he complained that the swift was too noisy. I’ll wind the second bit today. LOL. I love a good self-striping sock. I think I have decided that I’d like to find a contrasting color to make my heels and toes … I’ll search for that today. Heaven knows I have quite a collection of bits and bobs. I’m using the Yankee Knitter and Summer Lee and maybe other patterns that I’ve used before. I did about an inch of 1×1 rib and then I’m just going to knit the leg. I’ll do a heel flap and gusset in a solid colored yarn and then knit the foot down to the toe and change the toe color, too. I could use more than one color, too … thoughts? I’ll show you what I choose!

I had to frog back my Jaunty this morning … only about an inch but I found a spot where I switched my knit belows and purls and the pattern looked off. It was almost something I could ignore but I decided it was only a few rows back and I decided to fix it instead. I’ve now got the stitches back on the needles and I’m ready to move on down the last part of the project.

I’ve really enjoyed knitting Jaunty! I am loving the yarn and the stitch pattern. I chose to knit with Ewetopia Helix DK in two different colorways because I thought I loved the purple one best and we only had two hanks in the store. BUT the blue colorway had enough purple that I thought it would also work and give me enough yarn to make the large sized Jaunty. I was right and I am very happy with the whole project. Well, not so much with the silly mistake I made but it’s fixed now and I can move on toward the end of the project. Maybe I’ll have another FO by the end of this coming week (or sooner). (And please note the cute sock on my foot!)

So, I know have my Make Mine a Double to figure out and I have had several helpful comments on that. Thank you. I think I’m going to rewind the hank and wind off the chocolate (dark) brown color and use the blue/brown/taupe medium colors on the first and then the second sleeve, breaking the yarn in between. It’s not my first preference, I’d love the yarn to be all one thread BUT I do think that the sleeves need to have some consistent color and I think that’s the right thing to do. I’ll finish them both with the lighter beige into the creamy color so they’ll “match” the body of the sweater (sort of). I am almost to the ribbing … there’s two inches of it … but I have to try it on again to see if it’s long enough to wear with my jeans. No midriff revelations at my age! Ha! Ha!

Early next week I’ll be seeing my daughter and she can try on her Levitate Wrap cardigan to make sure it’s going to be a good fit. I didn’t have her in my house to measure so we have guessed, albeit an educated guess, at her sizing. The sweater is supposed to be a boxy fit and I am on gauge so I am hopeful that it’ll be a go. I hope to make some good progress on that next week after the fitting. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I’ve read two good books about relationships that I thought I’d suggest here. The first one is Ann Patchett’s Whistler. I read this for my summer book club. We all loved it and I think I may have to re-read it because after our discussion I may be able to notice more details. Ann Patchett is an incredible writer and it’s a wonderful read. The second book was initially the book club book but was changed (to Whistler) and I missed the memo because I missed the first book club meeting. Anyway, the second book is Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. Both books are pictured below. Crossing to Safety is an older book but I still enjoyed it .. even with a brief break to read the correct book club book, I wanted to go back and finish it. And now I’m going back to the first book club book which was Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I took a break from Braiding Sweetgrass to read Crossing to Safety … well, you get the idea. I have to finish Braiding Sweetgrass, too. Worthy of a read. I loved learning more about the cultural beliefs of the native Americans, in particular.

Ok, it’s Saturday and I have a lot of ideas on what I want to do today beginning with lunch with my favorite hubby. We’re heading into town to try a new Chinese restaurant that’s not far from work (and there’s another few restaurants we need to try, too.) Neither of us loves to leave “campus” when we’re home on the weekends so this is a stretch but we also realize we don’t get out much. We’re trying.

Gone knitting.

FO and a new WIP

Posted on April 1, 2026 by Queen Bee Knits

No fooling here today. I’ve been working on my spring cleaning and making slow but sure progress. It may take me a full year to get this house cleaned but I decided one cabinet or two at a time and that makes the bites more manageable. One or two days of all-day cleaning sounds horrible. I’ve gotten three filthy cabinets cleaned and have a few things to get rid of and that’s progress. Today I even found my dough hook that I thought I’d left behind when I moved to Florida in 2007. Woo! Hoo! I can make bread now. (Like that’s stopped me before.)

And I have a new FO. I finished my I’m so Basic Socks. The pattern is free on Ravelry. This is one of Summer Lee’s patterns. I also own both of her books and have had fun reading them. I’ve made a couple of other pairs of her socks, too. This pair used a sock set from Frabjous Fibers that I picked up on sale at the shop. I liked working with it well enough but I wasn’t wowed by the yarn. And the socks came out nicely. I followed the “large” sock size (72 sts) and they fit a little more loosely than I’d like. I actually like a bit of negative ease on my socks (I like them pretty tight on my foot) and these don’t have enough. Next time, I’ll cast on for the medium size … well, I’ve already done that.

Upon finishing the I’m so Basic socks, I cast on the Escher Socks, also by Summer Lee. These are a stranded colorwork pair of socks in her Sock Obsession book. I am knitting the medium size and using stashed yarn. The cream color is deeply stashed merino and nylon blend that I bought a bag of when I thought I might like to hand-dye yarn. The contrasting color is a ball of Crazy Zauberball that I’ve had in stash forever, too. It may be from one of the yarn selection bags that I got when I did the Year of Techniques classes with Jen Arnall-Kulliford back in the day. I took a photo of the outside and the inside. They’re really potato chippy (I can’t put them down! As a result, my left arm/hand is not feeling great and I’m trying to give it some rest, massaging the muscles and remembering to stop and stretch. It’s better today but I am being very careful.

I’m going to cast on my daughter’s sweater, too. Maybe today or this weekend. I am also signed up for two KALs. One is the Wooly Thistle Shawl KAL and the other is the Beary Cozy Gnome Mystery KAL. I’ve got a bag of fingering weight yarn left overs, bits and bobs, that I will share with my co-worker friend, Carol, who’s doing it with me. Care to join, dear readers? It starts April 15th, if memory serves.

I’ve decided that for the shawl KAL I’ll be knitting Gudrun Johnson’s Hansel Hap (half) which I have enough Jamieson/Jamieson & Smith yarn for in my stash (notice a theme?) I am going to have to fudge the main color just a bit. I have three 25 gram balls of a light gray for the MC/center section and I will need more of the MC for the border, too, and I found a different light gray that’s one of the natural colors. For my contrasting colors I’m using two blues, a white and teal/turquoise.

Gone knitting!

WIP Wednesday

Posted on April 17, 2024 by Queen Bee Knits

As Mister Rogers would say, “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood!” We woke up to lots of sunshine and even got to have coffee on the porch until the breeze picked up – the breeze off the water is still pretty cold.

I thought I would update you on my knits, my WIP Wednesday post, so to speak. As I type, my Braided Cable Handle Tote is in its second very hot wash cycle. The first cycle was pretty close to felted but I could still see stitch definition so I’ve put it back in for round two. I didn’t think I’d want to have a pink purse but the yarn was a gift and the pattern was free so … off I went on Eclipse Day 2024 with a new project to cast on. It’s a simple enough pattern to knit and the cables add some interest to the stockinette stitch in the round. If I had the ability to be regimented and to keep track of my hours knitting, I’d know how long it took me to knit. BUT I don’t have that gene so I’m going to guess it took about 8-10 hours to knit? That would mean if I was going to even think about selling these and paying myself a “fair” wage (Maine minimum wage is close to $15/hour) I’d have to charge, for my time, $120-150 for this bag. Because this was gifted to me, the cost of materials is 0 but normally, two balls of 100% wool yarn would be somewhere in the area of $20-25. So, when I add the cost of materials to my time the bag now becomes $140-175. AND if I wanted to line it with fabric, that cost goes up again. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d be willing to pay that for a felted bag … I’d love to hear what you think. But my feeling is that I won’t be knitting a bunch of these for a craft show any time soon.

I’ve also been working toward completion of my Oorik Tank Top. Last night I completed the first of the two arm hole ribbing. It was a tight circle to knit with my 5″ needle tips but I did it and began to weave in all the ends on the inside of the vest. I am totally patting myself on the back for the knitting on this vest. It looks pretty stinking great! Today I haven’t decided which project will get my attention first but this Oorik tank is one possibility. It’s so close!

I worked a bit on my raspberry-colored socks, too, yesterday. I’ve gotten to the end of the second sock and have a few more rounds before I can graft the toe and say that these are done. I really love the color of the socks and I really hope the person that I made them for loves them and wears them. Often when you gift someone something they don’t wear them OR they don’t care for them. I’m giving up that bit of “control” and hope that they’ll be cared for and worn … that’s the best I can do. Next on the needles for socks will be some self-patterning yarn that I’ve been hauling around with me forever. I think I may make one of the Crazy Sock Lady’s patterns. The yarn is a cotton blend and pink and white … I’m noticing a pattern here. Haha.

I have begun the first thumb on my Fiddlehead Mittens but they’ve not been touched for a while. This should only take me a few hours to finish and then the mittens need a knitted lining … I haven’t knitted a lot of mitten linings but the ones that I have knit are not perfect and I hope that my “practice” on the last couple of linings will make this lining the best one yet. I still haven’t decided what yarn I will use to line the Fiddlehead Mittens but I will use yarn from my stash. And I am reminded that the Maine Yarn Cruise will happen again this year with some big changes, apparently. There will be an online component (I think the passport will be virtual or print-your-own) and I know my LYS, Yardgoods Center, will be participating. It runs from July 1 through Indigenous Peoples Day in October. There’s a website!

I pulled out the bottom ribbing and a couple of inches of my Sunset Highway sweater at least a couple of weeks ago and it’s been sitting on my ottoman for all that time on a stitch holder. I have to try it on to see if I’ve frogged it back enough (and I haven’t tried it on yet) and then re-knit the ribbing. I’ve also got to work the kinks out of the leftover yarn so that I can reuse it which means spraying it with water and stretching it on my swift or washing it and letting it dry on my swift. Update: I just tried it on and I think it needs to be frogged back another couple of inches so that it will be about this length when I reknit the ribbing. Or a little bit shorter. I have to check out the pattern since I finished this sweater so long ago to see how many inches of ribbing it asks for (and see if I agree.) Once the body is finished, I may have to do something with the sleeves, too. I’m not sure I like the heaviness of the dark red at the “cuff”. Hey, a pattern is only a guideline, right?

I still have a few things that are still on my list of things that need to be finished and I’ve had an “order” for another Emotional Support Chicken and for another Ruby the Mega Ray. I had an interesting experience shopping online with Michaels … I ordered safety eyes for the chickens and yarn for three rays … I was sent one set of eyes and got an email that part of my order was being sent (another set of eyes and half of the yarn.) I also got an email that my order was cancelled because the yarn was out of stock … but it’s still listed for sale on the website. So … when I called Michaels to ask if I had more stuff coming, the customer service rep was nice enough with a little snark and I may have to return all the yarn because I have nothing for the underside of the rays … unless I want to start over again and try to order a different belly color. AND then I have to wait again to see if I get any of the yarn I order … to be determined.

I had begun another sweater wayyyyy back when and then it has sat idly by while I did other things. I do want to make this sweater if I can figure out where I left off and can pick it up again and my stitches are consistent after all this time. I may begin again … the sweater is the Tree Seasons Cardigan and I absolutely fell in love with the yarn used in the pattern and I was able to buy ten balls which is exactly what I need to complete the sweater. I hope I can lengthen it a bit but I don’t want to run out of yarn either. I have a long way to go until I figure that out. This is a heavily cabled cardigan and it will be my project that requires me to sit by myself in a quite room project. At least initially while I learn the pattern. I want to get it done so I can wear it in the fall which means that I’m going to have to pull it out soon.

I want to start Susan B. Anderson’s bunny rabbit with a sweater pattern. Yarn is in a project bag in my studio waiting for me to finish just a few of my WIPs so that I don’t feel too guilty starting something new. Ha!

Gone knitting.

It’s been a “Timespan”

Posted on November 20, 2021 by Queen Bee Knits

This has been a crazy busy timespan … since I am lazy enough to not go back and see when I last posted, I’m using that word to indicate that it’s been a while since I have last written something here.

Life has taken on a life of its own and I am feeling the pressure of fall and shorter darker days and the impending holidays that always add pressure. Maybe one of these days I’ll learn to say “no” more often but for now, I am keeping my promises and working hard to stop every so often so that I don’t fall apart. Spending part of every day with yarn in my hands certainly helps. It also helps me to see that I am making progress both in my knitting projects and in work and volunteer areas of my life. My husband and I even had a date night and went to see a movie – neither one of us “liked” it but we went out. Together! A first since the pandemic began.

I started a thing at the store that isn’t original and not close to being my idea. Socktober. I found an article somewhere on the Internet about it and did a bit of research and then added it to my work newsletter that I write each Sunday morning. The Yardgoods Center – Yarn department – donated 16 pairs of hand knitted socks to the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter. I knit the pair above and also included a pair of baby pink hand knit socks, two pairs of store-bought socks that have been in my gift drawer (doesn’t everyone have one of these?) and the wonderful customers at YGC brought in the rest. I think it’s a wonderful gift to those who are less fortunate and I hope the socks will keeps some feet warm this winter.

Pattern: Yankee Knitter Socks for the Family, Yarn: Regia 8 Fadig. Check my Ravelry project page for more details on this project and all of the others I talk about. I’m LindaR on Ravelry.

I have a bunch of projects on the needles and a few that I feel like I need to get to or need to finish.

I have finally made some real progress on my husband’s Christmas sweater. I gave him the yarn for said sweater last year at Christmas and it looks as if I will have it finished by Christmas this year. I’m knitting him the Knitting Pure and Simple Men’s Pullover in Cascade 220 yarn in a heathery-gray colorway. I don’t recall ever knitting with Cascade 220 yarn and I really like the hand of this 100% wool yarn. It’s not scratchy at all.

Pattern: #991 Neck-Down Pullover for Men, Yarn: Cascade 220 (100% wool).

I finished my “Christmas Tree” socks that I’ve been wanting to knit for ages. I’m trying to keep up with a pair of socks a month (2021 Sock of the Month Challenge) and I may have fallen off the wagon just a bit but I think I am back on. This pattern is on Ravelry and I used deeply stashed yarn by the Buffalo Wool Company. Back when I was being paid to work full time (as compared to now when I’m working part-time and volunteering part-time) I joined a yarn club with BWC. I got to know the owner because we had a couple of shipping snaffus … mostly because we were in Maine for a couple of months and then Florida the balance of the time and yarn went to one place when we were in another and never the twain should meet. Ron was an absolute wonder to work with and when I “tripped” over him at an outside holiday art/craft festival in Washington, DC one year, it was really fun to be able to meet in person. (And of course he remembered me as the shipping problem. LOL)

Pattern: Evergreen Socks, Yarn: Buffalo Wool Company Tracks Sock

I’ve begun working on Arne and Carlos’ 2021 Advent Calendar patterns. I adore these little “jumpers” so much and they’re fun to knit and very satisfying to finish in a day or two. I’ve finished the first two jumpers and have finished knitting the third but still need to weave in ends and steam block it. I don’t imagine that I’ll finish these before Christmas is over but I will get them done (probably before I finish the Christmas balls from 2020) because I really want to have them displayed in the house. It takes me about four hours to knit one of these and another half an hour to do the finishing. Each one is unique and there is a collection of Christmas balls to match … I won’t be buying that pattern … yet.

Pattern: Arne and Carlos 2021 Advent calendar mini-jumpers is available for purchase on their website, yarn: Patagonia Organic Merino by Juniper Moon Farm.

I have been crocheting snowflakes for the store window display using free patterns off the internet and scraps of yarn on hand. I have to get the glue out and dilute it to “starch” them so that they’ll hang straight. I’ve also been crocheting a set of Yip Yips that will be a gift. I’ll stop talking about them here and will write about them after they’re delivered. Another gift is a pair of socks that are on my needles currently. It’s a pair of “vanilla” socks in a colorful colorway and I’ll write more about them later, too. Suffice it to say that I am almost done with the first sock. I’ve got a way to go to get them completed.

My FEZA baby blanket is nearly finished. I’ve reached the finishing point of the fourth color. Since this isn’t promised to anybody (I started it as a project to work on when I am teaching classes or sitting in a Zoom meeting) it is sitting alone in the bottom of my knitting bag. I’ll get it finished one of these days. My Fine Sand Cardigan is in the same place. I won’t likely wear it until spring. That gives me the winter to get it finished. I really need to get it finished THIS winter, though.

With any luck, the next time I write here, there will be more than one finished item. Perhaps a sweater and a blanket by the end of the year? I’m keeping track this year of how many projects I complete … so far it’s up to around 50. Can I reach 60? Time will tell … that work thing keeps getting in the way of my knitting time.

Gone knitting!