Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Day Two - A Project Befitting a Bee


Our fair Mimi at Eskimimimakes (self-identified as belonging to the House of Monkey) has decided that for our second day of this year's Knitting & Crochet Blogging Week we needed to identify a project that, in some way, personified the house to which we belong.
 
So, ok. How to go about this. I could sketch something, do the swatchy thing, perhaps even paint something, but that would take loads of time - time that would be well-spent but that I do not have to spare because (hey, I'm a bee don't forget) I'm in the middle of several projects.
 
I am also, as I mentioned yesterday, in love with knitting and crochet books (and I have a keyword dedicated to it - crafting from my shelf). I also have a weakness for the awesomeness that is the Ravelry pattern database. Talk about code monkey extraordinaire - that Casey has developed the most amazing database tool like, ever. As a result, I initially logged into Ravelry, went to the pattern database, typed in "bee," filtered for all patterns with a photo, and pressed the search button.

Wrong move. 
 
Out spat over something like a gazillion patterns, including all those dreaded sock patterns. Gah. What next?
 
Flit directly to the nectar, of course - search my Ravelry library. Ha ha! Those monkeys have nothing on us industrious bees - nope, no siree Bob. Doing that yielded 5 hits, three from last year's fall Noro Knitting Magazine that, while lovely, I'm not exactly certain why they popped up.
 
Fine - I've narrowed it down to two patterns, folks: a lovely Drops dress made with two of my favorite fibers - alpaca and mohair - and the Fleas & Bees Blanket. I love a good blanket, but one with "fleas" in the name? No, thank you very much. That makes the decision super easy:

Even though this pattern was published a few years ago, isn't it still excellently relevant? It turned up in the results because the bodice and hem utilize a "beehive" stitch pattern.

While I probably would skip the ribbon, I actually love this search result. I might need to make this.

But not now. I have too many other projects on the hooks and sticks.

And I might still paint something.

Embrace the Bee within.

I managed to read several blogs yesterday, including one French and the other Swiss. Maybe I'll vicariously visit a few other countries today.




 





8 comments:

  1. The way you look for a pattern sounds very similar to me, and I'm a bee too! I love the pattern you've found, it's gorgeous.

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  2. LOL yes, I bin all the sock patterns too :)

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  3. That is a lovely dress, I've never really felt compelled to knit an adult dress before but I could certainly change my mind now.

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  4. Oooh, tunic sweaterdress - great find! I love it in that color, too...

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  5. I love knitted dresses. This is a pretty one. The color shown here is beautiful, too.

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  6. The dress is lovely! I hope you do knit it:)

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  7. I'm a bee too, totally get all you say about the super awesomeness of Ravelry..and you dread sock knitting too? LOL. So do I. I love that dress pattern, it looks like something I'd wear a lot in winter.

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