Okay, have you guys seen the Little Owls “Bekeper’s Quilt” video?
OMG!!
Okay, if you know me, or have read my blog, you know I am the first one to admit that I want to be swept away, and even when it comes to my project choices, I tend to go towards the romantic, and the good storyline.
I knit the Clapotis when I was living in Macon, GA. We were renovating. I remember working on the Clapotis while driving back and forth to Lowes with DH in his beat up pick-up truck.
For those of you that may not remember Kate Gilbert’s fabulous pattern here’s is the opening paragraph:
French women are known for wearing scarves. Starting in September and until summer arrives, this is a most important accessory. The scarf may be striped or patterned, colorful, wrinkled and is much bigger than the scarves you probably have. Women just wrap the scarf around their neck in a "Je suis belle et ça ne demande aucun effort*" sort of way and off they go.
Translation, I will knit this fabulous scarf, and I will move to Paris, drink wine and cappuccino, and have fantastic sex all the time.
Although, we were both out of work at the time, I made the big splurge and bought the yarn that the project was originally knit with at the local yarn store. The yarn cost around $29 a skein, and the project called for four skeins. It was Lorna’s Lace “Lion and Lamb” and it was a silk merino combo. It was like knitting with butter.
It made me happy, gloriously happy, and I wore my clapotis into the ground. For some darn reason, I didn't bring it to New York with me. I left it in Macon, and sadly after many attempts to try and find it, it's become an LFO (Lost Finished Object).
Other projects that I have been swept away by were the Ice Queen (which I knitted with the AC turned way up in July); the Lion Neck Cardigan (which I have yet to wear to the opera); and the Secret of the Stole (which has yet to reveal it's secret).
Currently, I am knitting the “Sothia.” For the life of me, I am not even sure how I got roped in. It’s a triangular striped ruffle shawl designed Robin Ulrich. Here’s the thing, I don’t even like stripes, but after hearing Jasmine of the Knitmore Girls swoon over it, I found myself stalking the pattern, and late one night I found my fingers hitting the “Buy now” button.
I mean really, didn’t I need a striped ruffled shawl, I mean seriously, “Doesn’t everyone?” And to add insult to injury, my original plan was to use up my stash, but about a 1/3 of the way into it I realized I needed a more contrasty color combo, so I bought yarn to go with it. And ofcourse the yarn was yarn I had fallen inlove with 9 months before when Anne Hanson showed me a sample of it in her class at Vogue Knitting Live. “She told me that silver grey color way would look good on me.”
I am about 1/3 of the way through the project, and I can’t wait to finish my ruffled shawl so that I can wear it, like the pattern’s model does, frolicking through a field of flowers.
Okay, a little dose of reality here. Or maybe not so much a dose of reality, as much as an explanation. The last few weeks I have been on doggie death watch. Frankie was hit about a month ago with a really bad case of pneumonia. If I sound morbid about it, it’s because it has been pretty brutal. There were a few long nights were I stayed up rubbing dear Frankie’s chest while he hacked his little lungs out. The poor guy has had a rough time of it the last few months. The vet wanted to hospitalize him, and honestly I did too, but it’s bad enough our finances have suffered so much the last year from my health, as much as I love Frankie I can’t see going into debt over him.
So we hit him hard with meds and I have spent hours playing nursemaid. We are on the third round of antibiotics and though were aren’t out of the woods yet, I am feeling more hopeful. He’s been able to sleep through the last few nights, which means I have been able to sleep more. On nights when he was up coughing and we were both waiting for the medicine to kick in, I did what I often do when I can't sleep, I looked at patterns online.
On a recent episode of Electric Sheep, Katie talked about the "Beekeper's Quilt." If you haven't listened to Electric Sheep, you really should. It's a lot of fun, and Katie has a great voice. Her comments about the beekeper's quilt intrigued me. There was a project out there that over 2600 knitters were knitting and I had never heard about it. How did it slip buy me?
Okay, here is the thing. I hate afghans, blankets, baby blankets, quilting, sewing, fiddly things, toys, etc. There is NOTHING about the Beekeper's quilt that calls to me, EXCEPT for some darn reason it called to me. I watched Stephanie's video, and once again, I was swept away.
Wouldn't it be great to get rid of all those little balls of sock yarn that I had been collecting? And wouldn't it be nice to have a portable project? And everyone needs a blanket, and some knitters out there were just making cushions with there puffs. Who doesn't need a cushion.
I hit buy now, and download, and within in the hour I was casting on. For two days in a row, I have overdyed yarn to make miniskeins.
You only need 15 yards per puff!
The other thing about this project is it's immediate gratification. It takes me about 45 minutes to knit and stuff a puff. Some people are doing it in a half hour, I am not there yet, but I have around 480 more to make if I want a blanket so there is time for me to get up to speed. I get to change yarn, and color constantly. There are colors that I never get to knit with because they don't look good on me. I haven't knitted with orange in six months. I never knit with yellow.
Last Sunday, I went to a fiber swap and I left with a bunch of my friends cast offs. It makes me so happy to know that I will be knitting with their remnants. I know this sounds hokey, but I love thinking about the fact that when I finish the blanket, I will have a part of them always with me.
Anyway, I could show you pictures of all my fingeringweight stash, but if your like me you probably have a lot of stash of your own that you can look at, so instead I am going to show you a picture of my first round of puffs. Since this picture was taken, I have knit 7 more puffs. I think I am up to 21 now.

