handmade by stefanie

Today's post will be a quick one - I just wanted to spread the news about my friend's Kickstarter project to launch a US/Canada tour of her soon-to-be world-famous Tractorloom. Yep, it's a tractor...it's a loom....it's a Tractorloom! Click  here  to view the details -you can weave and plow a field at the same time! It's super cool and even won "best of show" at the Naples Grape Festival. She's taken it to nearby farmers' markets, fiber festivals, etc. and it has gotten people really excited about weaving. She wants to visit schools and other public places to educate people not only about weaving, but a host of other topics as well - the nature of farming, where our food comes from, etc. She has a really big goal to meet in order to launch this tour; one of the major expenses will be purchasing a truck that can haul the tractorloom from spot to spot, and she's hoping to find a truck that runs on veggie oil to reduce her carbon footpr...

Note: I do realize it's not Saturday today! This was the post I wrote yesterday before my internet connection went haywire. I decided to take my Ladybug out to the back porch to spin up my Wensleydale top, and now that my internet connection has mysteriously righted itself, I am sharing this post today!  I'm still spinning up a storm! This week, I pulled out two fibers from my stash: the first, 5 oz. Finn top from Spunky Eclectic in natural cream that I've had in my fiber stash for several years; the second, a braid of very pretty hand-dyed Wensleydale roving from Northbound Knitting , which I purchased earlier this year. I thought it might be interesting to spin singles from both of these fibers and ply them together, but a lot of that depends on how the Wensleydale spins up. The Finn (also known as Finnish Landrace or Finnsheep) was surprisingly lofty - you can't really see the halo in the photo below, but trust me, it's there! It was really a dream...

It's the last FO Friday of April, and I'm psyched to share my latest finished project with you, my ready-for-spring cropped cardigan ! Now that all the ends are woven in and it's been blocked, I just need to find the perfect buttons. This was a pretty quick knit (I am a historically slow sweater knitter, even for cropped cardis and such); on April 4 I cast on and ended up ripping out my work and starting again from scratch mid-month because I am OCD . I'm glad I did, because the finished product is perfect! Once I sew on some buttons, I'll have my husband take a photo of me wearing it, but for now, here's my latest FO: Pattern: Breezy Bolero by Marly Bird Yarn: Roslyn , a fingering weight cotton/cashmere blend from Bijou Basin Ranch Notes: My size called for 4 balls of yarn; but because I had to go down a needle size to get gauge, I ended up using only a tiny bit of that fourth ball! I probably have enough to make some fingerless mitts or a hat; perhaps i...

Amazingly enough, I did finish my Breezy Bolero by the end of the weekend; it is currently blocking and awaiting buttons! Consequently,  I only have two projects on the needles at the moment, plus I'm in between crochet projects. The first WIP is a pair of socks that I haven't blogged about in a while, as they went on the backburner for a bit. They are my own design (which will be out at some point this summer - as soon as I can manage things) and I'm knitting them with some beautiful hand-dyed sock yarn from Fleece Artist . My second WIP is a pair of thrummed mittens from Marly Bird's Craftsy Class , which I blogged about earlier this week. It's probably a weird time of year to start knitting what's sure to be the warmest pair of mittens I'll ever own, but that's just how things go sometimes. Thrummed mittens have been on my mental to-knit list for a few months, and I really could have used some super-warm mittens these past few months. Alas, now...

Over the weekend, I began my preparations to make the Warm in Here Thrummed Mittens from Marly Bird's Mittens & Gloves Galore class on Craftsy (you can read my full class review here ). This has been in my queue for a while now, and I have to say there have been many days I've wished for thrummed mittens, including last Friday when it was blustery and snowing here in Chicago! When I worked at Lorna's Laces , I dyed a bunch of Wooltop in various colors to use in needle felting projects...and since they never really happened, I thought this would be the perfect way to put them to good use. Plus, they happen to look pretty good with the yarn I picked out, some pretty multicolored yarn from Knit One Crochet Too . As you can see, I made a big o' pile of thrums this weekend - over 100, in fact! I hope that's enough, but I still have plenty of leftover fiber if I need to make more. Tonight I'm going to do my gauge swatch and then cast on for my first mitten....

The arrival of my first shipment from the Sweet Georgia Fibre Club proved to be the perfect motivation to finish the spinning project that has been on my wheel for several weeks now: some very pretty merino roving I purchased at the Yarn Barn in Lawrence, KS a long time ago. That night, I finished the second single, and then on Thursday afternoon I plied both singles together. I'm still not sure how this happened, but I only have a few inches left over from one of the singles once the plying was complete! What I like about this fiber is how it looks like a grayish-brown from far away: But when you get closer, you can see that there are lots of heathered colors that blend together to trick the eye from far away: Before delving into my newest fiber acquisition, I wanted to be sure to spin the custom batt which I purchased at YarnCon earlier this month (I'm not sure if you can request a custom-made batt from the  Knitspin etsy shop , but they have plenty of other fibe...

Last week, I discovered that my blog readership was comprised mostly of enablers! Not that I'm complaining, since I rather liked the encouragement to work on as many projects as I like. I haven't been allowing myself too much freedom in that regard, but the gloves came off last weekend and I have to thank my blog readers for that! First, I started a very simple baby hat while on the bus; you may recognize it from last week's post , though I ended up not following a pattern after all (I didn't want to consult a chart while on-the-go). A few days later, I was done with my Cutie Patootie KAL/CAL baby hat! I used Cotton Comfort from the Green Mountain Spinnery , and I probably have enough left over to make another baby hat, or perhaps some matching booties! Over the weekend, I also started crocheting a retro mushroom potholder (available for free on the Lion Brand Website ). I never thought I'd be the type to make a potholder, but I couldn't resist this aweso...

Today's post will be a short one, because I have finished a few projects and been concentrating the rest of my crafting time on the Breezy Bolero . I actually did end up ripping the entire thing out and starting over - I don't know what compels me to do such things, to be perfectly honest. Whatever the reason, I'm glad I did because the issue I was bothered by is significantly better on this second attempt. With the progress I made over the weekend and these last few days, you probably wouldn't have known that's what I did if I hadn't just confessed, am I right? Click here to see last week's progress for comparison's sake! At any rate, last night I took off for the sleeves, and now I just have a few inches of stockinette and decreases to do before I get to the ribbing and bind off. My somewhat-unrealistic goal is to have ALL of the knitting completed by the end of this coming weekend. I suppose anything is possible, but considering I am (usually) t...

Having just under 2 years of self-employment under my belt, I am still refining my day-to-day workflow for maximum efficiency. Whether you're self-employed or otherwise, it can be tough managing all of the day-to-day tasks that life demands. My productivity as of yesterday! Personally, I hate feeling like I'm forgetting to do something important, but an even worse feeling is realizing that I actually DID forget to do something important! I have a hard time with the concept of a 'paperless' office (though I like the ecological implications, some part of me needs to have a hand-written list or see the words printed on a piece of paper). I'm old school; I actually sit down at the beginning of each work-week with six pieces of paper (one for each weekday and the sixth for Saturday and Sunday combined), portioning out the week's tasks so that each day has just a few "big" to-do's coupled with a few smaller tasks....with plenty of space for all o...

My knitting guru's birthday was last Friday, and I wanted to think of something fun yet useful that I could make her. After combing Ravelry and my bookshelves for ideas, I finally decided that the Turtle Lunch Tote from Amigurumi on the Go would make an excellent project bag! It was actually kind of hard to give this one away, I may have to make one for myself someday soon. You can purchase this awesome book via Craftsy Deals by clicking my affiliate link! I got a few goodies in the mail this week - first, I placed an order with HaldeCraft because I wanted to try the lavender hand lotion before it was discontinued...naturally, some lip balm  (which is also being discontinued) found its way into my shopping cart, and Lorena very kindly included a bar of Lavender soap that smells absolutely heavenly. I don't usually order lavender anything  online without already being familiar with the product line and how it smells, because there is good lavender and very, very b...

I've been trying to resist startitis, which is has become much harder since YarnCon this past weekend. For instance, I discovered I have enough Seda Sock to knit the Elfe sweater, but I am trying not to cast on til I finish the cropped cardi I just started. Unfortunately, progress hasn't been swift because I keep getting distracted by other things - this is as far as I've gotten since casting on last Thursday: Not a whole lot so see there! There is also the problem of some serious laddering near the cable panels, which I think is tied to how I'm increasing (I'm doing a m1 where you lift up the bar between the stitch you just worked and the stitch on the needle and knit through the back loop); this is also where there is a stitch marker AND a switch from knit to purl, so basically that is the trifecta of unappealing laddering, at least for me - I've always had this issue with my knit-to-purl transitions. The question is, should I frog and restart to try to...

This weekend, my pal Lauren and I went to YarnCon , Chicago's independent fiber festival that features several local and regional indie dyers, spinners, and other fiber-related folks. This year, they are kicking off the fiber festival season (at least for me), rather than waiting til the fall - a clever move, since there are already many fibery events in the region from August-October (Stitches, Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival, Michigan Fiber Festival and VK Live all come to mind). Their new venue in the west loop is a little roomier, too, boasting plenty of parking; another exciting development for this year's show was moving to a two-day format! I had a small budget which I managed to stick to, amazingly enough. There were many temptations, of course, but in the end I made just a few purchases: a skein of Seda Sock from the Grinning Gargoyle booth (in Signature Red to coordinate with the Espresso Seda Sock yarn I purchased at VK Live last fall), some hand-dyed organi...

I finished my third and final Malabrigo March project on the last day of the month (with a few hours to spare!). I ended up using a small amount of Arroyo in Escorias that was left over from the Mushin Cowl as a contrast color once it became obvious that I would run out of Plomo before getting to the border. It was just my good luck that I liked the way they look together! Basically, I knit the body til I ran out of yarn, then picked up stitches for the border and began the long, slow process of an i-cord bindoff. I had about 5g of Plomo reserved for finishing each sleeve, which worked out pretty well - all told, I probably had 4-5 yards of Plomo left over. I spent last Sunday morning weaving in the ends, and then there was the moment of truth: trying it on. It even fits! It's not totally perfect, but considering what a random experiment it was, I'm pretty pleased with the results. For those of you who missed earlier posts about this project, I used an app called Raglan...

Since I finished my final Malabrigo March project over the weekend (which I'll blog about this Friday), I decided to start swatching for my next sweater project. Though it's still pretty chilly in these parts, I expect any day now I'll be in need of yet another cropped cardigan, and I just happened to have the yarn and pattern for Marly Bird's Breezy Bolero waiting in the wings. I whipped up my first swatch and discovered that I've become quite the loose knitter, so I'm working on swatch number 2 with slightly smaller needles. Hopefully that'll do the trick and I can cast on soon! I've also made some major progress on the Destash Constitution Hall Scarf  - as you can see, I've started the next phase of striping! I even snuck in a few rows while at the sold out Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show this past Monday. I know it's slightly off-topic, but I feel the need to write about it because we had front row tickets (which we didn't find ou...

Perhaps I'm the only one who checks Craftsy's Yarn Deals on a nearly daily basis, but I just can't help myself. I have often been rewarded with some truly great deals on yarn (my Rocky Coast Cardigan comes to mind - I bought nine skeins of Canopy Worsted for 50% off in the Craftsy Yarn Shop !). There are also some really great patterns sold on Craftsy *, so I thought I'd start highlighting my favorites from both areas in a new regular feature. Enjoy! Stefaniegrrr 's Craftsy Picks of the Week for April 1, 2013: Manos Wool Clasica : 2 skeins will make this free pattern, the Wavy Cable Boot Toppers ! I made these for my rain boots last year and absolutely love them! Spud & Chloe Sweater : Use all three colors created exclusively for Craftsy to make Stacey Trock's adorable Alastair the Caterpillar ! Thanks for stopping by - don't forget to sign up for my newsletter , I'll have a really awesome subscriber-only deal for you this month! ...