handmade by stefanie

By now, if you're participating in next week's Spinzilla event, you already know what team you're on. Whether you're joining me on Team Louet or competing on any other the other many teams, here are some quick tips to help you get ready for a monster of a spinning week! 1. Clear those bobbins! If you're going to be spinning up your fiber stash, be sure to have plenty of empty bobbins to get the job done. 2. Perform routine maintenance. Check your spinning wheel's manual to make sure your wheel is in peak performing form. If you are using a Louet wheel , there is a handy online support center where you can troubleshoot various issues and download PDF versions of wheel manuals. 3. Wax on! Put the perfect finishing touch on your wheel with a nice coat of wheel wax to clean and condition the wood and any leather parts, too. I'm a fan of the wonderful-smelling herbal organic wax from Heavenly Spinning. 4. Take inventory of your fiber stash. No...

Before I left on my surprise trip to Kansas City last weekend, I whipped up a few quick hats with my handspun yarn. The bin is overflowing, and with Spinzilla just over a week away, I've got to make some room for all of the new yarns I'll be spinning during the event! The darker hat is some pretty merino fiber I purchased at The Yarn Barn of Kansas and spun into a bulky weight 2-ply; it's a charcoal grey with bright pops of fiber combed throughout. I didn't use a pattern, but just cast on some stitches to knit a ribbed border, then worked in stockinette the rest of the way. The brown hat is a 2-ply spun from some natural brown BFL and a hand-dyed BFL roving I purchased at the Renegade Craft Fair a few years ago. I used the Svalbard hat pattern from Kelbourne Woolens, which lent itself to handspun surprisingly well! While I was in Kansas City last weekend, I dropped by one of my favorite area yarn stores, The Studio . There wasn't anything I needed ...

Last night I got back home to Chicago after spending the weekend in Kansas City. I'd found a last-minute Megabus fare and surprised my mom for her birthday, which was on Monday of this week. The trip was about 10 hours each way, and I'm sure you can take a wild guess as to how I spent most of that time! I packed one WIP and yarn/patterns for two other projects; I returned home with two FO's and one brand-new WIP!  I can't give out too many details of this current WIP since it's a holiday gift, but I don't have anything else to share this week, so here goes: this mystery project is being knit with some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Satsuma....and that is pretty much all I can say on the subject.  Starting next week, I will happen to have a shareable WIP, since I'll be casting on for the 30-Day Sweater Challenge KAL beginning on October 1. I hope you'll join me, because it will be a really fun event that will involve a TON of great ...

Welcome to the first installment to what I hope is a regular feature here on this blog - See it Swatched . My goal is to try out new yarns (and sometimes revisit old favorites), sharing my thoughts and feedback as well as showing what each yarn looks knitted, crocheted, and woven; since I'm not a weaver, I'll be using my Schacht Zoom Loom for the woven swatch. I admit that I am not a very enthusiastic swatcher, so I thought that this would be a good way for me to make friends with the swatching process and maybe even learn a few things along the way. I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for this new feature so that I can refine the concept for future posts!  Anzula Cloud A few years ago, a friend gifted me a skein of Anzula Cloud . It was beautiful in the skein, but that was nothing compared to the experience of knitting with it, much less wearing the finished garment! I ended up using it for the second Stephen West Mystery KAL, Rockefeller . I pai...

Hooray, the Mountain Moss shawl is finally done - happy FO Friday indeed! Yesterday I removed all of the pins and wove in the ends; after a rainy start to the day, the sun came out and I was able to get a few shots of my pretty new shawl. I love it! Pattern: Mountain Moss Shawl by Beth Kling from the Summer 2013 issue of Pom Pom Quarterly Yarn: The Wool Dispensary Deadly Restorative in Vortex Shawl Pin: Knitter's Pride Exotica Series  - "Dittany" style Needles: Knitter's Pride Karbonz Interchangeables I've got more handspun goodness to share today, but this time it's a double whammy: hand-dyed skeins of handspun yarn! Last weekend, my pal Lauren and I embarked on some natural dyeing adventures using some sumac and marigolds Lauren had collected for the purposes of our experiments. I had some navajo plied Finn skeins and a couple of 2-ply Polwarth skeins ready to dye. First, I soaked them in water to prepare for their mordant bath. After mordantin...

Happy WIP Wednesday! I had quite the productive weekend - first, I finished the front piece for my Emmanuelle sweater. It's now blocking on my massage table in the craft room, though I probably won't get a chance to sit down and seam until next week. I also finished the Mountain Moss Shawl from Pom Pom Quarterly - it's just about dry, so I'm hoping to get a few photos snapped in time for FO Friday!  Don't you love my lace-blocking setup? I actually do have blocking mats, but I kind of prefer the CB2 box for some reason.  Finally, I decided to bust out the Nova Cubics interchangeable tips to knit a few handspun hats - if I'm going to be spinning a bunch of yarn during Spinzilla , I'd better make some room in my overflowing handspun bin! Here's the hat I currently have in progress - the yarn is some merino I spun up earlier this year; it's a very dark grey with little bits of color here and there. I bought the fiber several years ago a...

In today's post, I'll be talking about how to successfully knit (or crochet!) with hand-dyed and variegated yarns!  Each skein of hand-dyed yarn is unique and often has subtle variations that might not be evident in the skein til you begin to knit with it. Shaded solids are often the easiest to manage when knitting a larger project, while variegated yarns behave differently depending on the dye process.  A selection of hand-dyed yarns. A general rule of thumb for hand-dyed yarns is to alternate skeins of yarn every couple of rows to minimize differences within the dye lot. Yes, I know it sounds fussy, but trust me - it works and it's worth the extra effort! Alternating skeins tricks the eye to blend the colors of each row, which makes it the knitted piece appear more uniform. Not only is this a handy trick when knitting with skeins from the same  dye lot, it also works if you are knitting with skeins from  different  dye lots! Don't believe me? Let's se...

It's been a while since I shared my latest Craftsy crush - regrettably, I've been too busy to sit down and watch any of the 10+ fabulous classes for which I'm registered. It's nice to know, however, that they're there for whenever I do  have time:  I have lifetime, unlimited access and can watch from any device with an internet connection.  Craftsy is kicking off a weeklong Saleabration today, offering up to 75% off online classes, fabric and yarn! Woo hoo!  If you're wondering what classes to sign up for, you can click here to read some of my Craftsy Class Reviews . There are so many interesting classes (and yarns!) on sale, that I'll be sharing a few of my latest Craftsy crushes throughout the week! Today's theme is skillbuilding classes for knitters of all persuasions! Classes Knit Lab: In the Round with Stefanie Japel , $9.99 (great for beginners) Circular Knit Lab with Stefanie Japel , $9.99 (great for beginners) Knit Sock W...

It's pretty tough to resist a big bag of newly-purchased fibers, but I made myself finish the project I'd been working on in preparation for Spinzilla (clearing out leftover singles from bobbins) before allowing myself to start a new spinning project. I had various odds and sods which became four mini skeinlets, all of which I'm sure will make cute little critters at some point: I spent a very lovely Sunday afternoon spinning on my back porch with Lauren, each of us using one of the fibers we'd purchased the day before in Wisconsin. I spun these three singles from the Sunrise and Salsa Falkland roving I'd purchased at the Hearthside Fibers Booth. The fiber was delightful to spin, very easy and lofty and I loved how the colors spun up in a single. On Tuesday night, I plied them together: Now I just have to find the perfect project for my pretty new yarn! Thanks for stopping by this week - for more FO Friday inspiration, visit the  Tami's Amis blog !  ...

I finally have an exciting update on my Emmanuelle Sweater : I've started the Chevrons on the front piece! Woo hoo! So far, so good; I'm hoping the other colors I have planned will play well with everything else. With any luck, I can get this final piece knitted by the end of next week, which means I am on track for finishing this by the end of the month (I hope I didn't just jinx myself there). This would mean that it'll be one of the fastest adult-sized sweaters I've knit to date. I've also made some major progress on the Mountain Moss lace edging and it should be finished by the end of this coming weekend, too - which means I can start something new! I still have plenty of gift projects to knock out between now and December, so I'll be less stressed once I can finish this 'selfish' project and get back to gift knitting/crocheting. Of course, life has a way of throwing monkey wrenches into the best-laid plans, doesn't it? First, I'...

On Saturday, I headed up to the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival with my pal Lauren and my husband Tyler (who was our official photographer - you can see all of his photos here !). This is my second time attending, and it's always worth the drive up north. It was fairly hot for most of the day, but that didn't seem to deter anyone. There was a pretty good crowd on Saturday! There was plenty of temptation - so much wool to squish! I'm in heaven! Amazingly, enough, I managed to only come home with spinning fiber. With SOAR next month and VK Live in November, I've got to pace myself! I think I did a pretty good job. My first purchase was 8 oz. of undyed Organic Polwarth from Gale's Art (click  here  to view her Etsy shop) which I might try dyeing as roving before I spin it up: After surveying both vendor buildings, I decided to head back to the Hearthside Fibers booth (click here  to view their Etsy shop), which had some lovely breed-specific ...