handmade by stefanie

Knitting socks with a cotton yarn may cause you to exclaim “Say What?!” - but the uniqueness of SilverSpun is well-suited to the task! Featuring combed cotton with a touch of lycra, the resulting yarn is incredibly stretchy. The addition of pure silver adds a variety of benefits: silver inhibits the growth of odor-causing bacteria and also has excellent thermal properties (read more about this unique yarn here ). Say What? Socks  in SilverSpun yarn While the conductive properties of the yarn make it excellent for gloves or mittens, you’re sure to love these textured, cabled socks for year-round use. SilverSpun yarn is made from cotton which is raised and spun in North Carolina; it is a finalist for the Martha Stewart American Made Craft Awards , and I highly recommend you click here to cast your vote! The cabled panel gives a faux knotted look (without having to cut any yarn!), and it is complemented by a background of simple seed stitch. The Say What? socks ar...

I am beside myself this week: at long last, I have finished the  project I started back in August for the Holla Knits KAL (which has come and gone), the Admiralty pillow by Emily Ringelman! I won the yarn to make this project during a Holla Knits blog tour earlier this year, and it was a great motivator to actually making this project. Intarsia and I aren't friends, and to be honest, it's a technique I try to avoid whenever I can. However, knitting 12 intarsia pieces turned out to be a good way to become a bit  friendlier with the technique...although it's still not my favorite! I did modify this design to only use two colors in the intarsia panels rather than 3, because I knew I would lose my mind if I had to juggle 3 colors of yarn. That turned out to be a really good move, and while I think the third color definitely adds some definition to the finished object (which is probably why the designer did it in the first place!). If I had been smarter, I would have ...

I actually have two  sweaters on the needles right now, but I'm only able to share one on my blog (the other is a test knit for a not-yet-released pattern!). Over the weekend, I started my sleeves for the Chill Chaser KAL : as you can see, I opted for two-at-a-time on magic loop. While I never seem to suffer from Second Sock Syndrome, I almost always get Second Sleeve Syndrome; I also find sleeves two-at-a-time to be a practical choice: you are pretty much guaranteed that your sleeves will match up, both in terms of length and placement of increases/decreases. I had some pretty new yarn sent to me recently and couldn't resist casting on for a small project to see how it knit up. The yarn is a new exclusive base available at A Good Yarn Sarasota - it's called A Good Yarn Fingering , and it's hand-dyed by Yarn Love. Currently, you have to call them to order this yarn, but soon they will have it available for purchase online. The name of the colorway I got is Autumn ...

In just a few short weeks, Spinzilla will be kicking off! Today is the last day to register for a team; those of you who would like to spin Rogue have until October 3 to register - click here for more info on the Spinzilla website! #TeamLouet is officially full, and we are ready to spin for the glory this year. Our team thread in the Spinzilla group is buzzing with activity, and between now and October 6, I'll be sharing Spinner Profiles of our teammates here in the Louet Ravelry group . We'll also be discussing various topics to help folks prepare for the big event - our most recent thread is focused on fiber prep . Even if you aren't a member of our team, all are welcome to join in the discussion! #TeamLouet will have some amazing prizes up for grabs in addition to all of the other opportunities to win prizes throughout the event: GRAND PRIZE:  The  Bison Boogie  will be awarded to the spinner with the most yardage, who will win a fiber prize pack valued at ...

I'm way too excited about this week's FOs! The first is the Pokemon Card Deck Bag I made for my nephew's birthday, which was earlier this week! I ended up making up my own design, though it was heavily inspired by this free pattern on Ravelry . However, I wanted to construct mine a bit differently and crochet it in the round, so that necessitated a lot of changes; factor in my crazy-loose style of crochet, and I ended up starting from ground zero, more or less. The second FO for this week might be a bit of a spoiler, though I hope it's not - I just can't wait another week to blog about it! I finished my FreshStitches Mystery CAL project, and it turned out to be a super-cute puppy! Also, if you're just now tuning in, I have a new sport-weight sock design that came out this week! Air Quotes are the second-to-last design from my Conversation Socks ebook, and you can read more about them here ! Thanks for joining me this week. Have a crafty wee...

The big news this week is my progress on the Chill Chaser Cardigan , which is part of the Spud & Chloe #ChillChaserKAL happening here in their Ravelry group : I'm just about finished with both of the fronts and will be knitting the rest of the back piece shortly! My other knit-worthy news item is the progress I made over the weekend on my Admiralty pillow: As you can see, I bit the bullet and seamed all of the panels together, and I even wove in most of the ends in anticipation of beginning the final phase of pillow assembly. However, I can't proceed until the pillow form I ordered online arrives, so this project will return to the backburner til then. Consequently, not much time as been allocated to my Wedge socks, though a bit of progress has been made since last week: That's it for this week! I'd love to hear what's on your needles or hooks currently, too - and I'll meet you back here for FO Friday!

I'm pleased to start the week off with a brand-new sock pattern, the Air Quotes Socks ! They are the second-to-last design from Conversation Socks , and I am beyond thrilled to have this ebook so close to completion. In fact, my goal is release the final pattern two weeks from now, and you know what that means - the ebook price will increase once more! The  cable panels on the front of the Air Quotes Socks remind me of the old-timey quotation marks (in journalism class, we called them 66 and 99); the cuff is ribbed on the back to ensure excellent fit. The stitches are very easy to read so that you can fly through the pattern without needing to constantly consult the chart, and they are the perfect way to show off the beautiful hand-dyed colors from Baah Yarn . Bonus: the superwash merino of Sonoma is soft and easy-care! If you're just joining me, here's the deal: all 5 designs are written for sport weight yarn on US #3 needles; each pattern was created with the ...

I am so incredibly excited about my FO this week: the Lory Shawl  by Bristol Ivy, which is a pattern from the Fall 2014 issue of Knitscene. It calls for Bijou Basin Ranch's Himalayan Trail yarn, and I knit mine in one of their new Outlandish colorways, Geillis. "Shawl" is a bit of a misnomer in this pattern, as I'd really consider it to be more of a scarf - at least, that is how I intend to wear it this winter! It's 80 inches long but not terribly wide (at least by shawl standards), so that qualifies it as a scarf, at least in my book. It will be great for wrapping around my neck this winter, and I love the bright green color. Yak fiber is known for being incredibly warm (after all, they are native to the harsh, rugged regions of Tibet and Mongolia). In particular, the Himalayan Trail yarn is a 50/50 blend of both yak and merino fibers, and it feels cashmere-soft. It's the kind of yarn I can only knit slowly, because I keep stopping what I'm do...

As I mentioned on my blog earlier this week, I was able to snag the third-to-last limited-edition colorway in Bijou Basin Ranch's Tibetan Dream sock yarn which was hand-dyed by Miss Babs. Even though I'm test knitting a sweater, participating in the Chill Chaser KAL and also doing the FreshStitches Mystery CAL this month, I have thrown all caution to the wind and cast on for another pair of Wedge socks by Cookie A with my pretty new sock yarn: This pattern is really fun to knit, and it's absolutely perfect for variegated yarns. The first pair I made ended up being a bit large, so Tyler ended up being the lucky recipient of the finished socks. Though I didn't keep detailed project notes in my Ravelry notebook, I was able to find the pattern I'd copied for knitting-on-the-go, which had all of my handwritten notes on it. I'll be making the next size down so that I'm assured these socks will fit my feet this time around!  I printed out the second c...

This past weekend, I spent an afternoon at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival with my fiber friend Lauren, which is one of our favorite regional shows to attend (second only to YarnCon in the spring). I had a specific shopping list in mind which somehow I managed to stick to: L-R: Cloudlover Spinning Fiber, Green Mountain Spinnery Weekend Wool, and Bijou Basin Ranch Tibetan Dream in Seaside, a limited-edition color dyed by Miss Babs. Besides shopping the vendor marketplace, I spent a lot of my time talking to people at the show - I ran into a friend I haven't seen in a while, met up with Sarah of the excellent Knitting Sarah blog, and chatted with a few of my clients who had booths at the show. As always, there was plenty of temptation, but I was somehow able to resist. We didn't get a chance to see the sheep shearing demonstration (though we caught it last year ), but I did get a chance to make some sheepy friends and snap a few shots. We also...

It's been a while since I've checked out out an issue of Sockupied , but when I was offered a free download for my review, I couldn't say no! This latest issue is a user-friendly, interactive app which is available for both Mac and PC. I really liked the overall presentation; the images of the socks and products were well-done, while the graphics interface was eye-catching and engaging. The layout is such that you can click (or tap) various areas on the page to bring up more content which are generally well-marked with graphic elements such as asterisks or arrows. True North DK Socks  by Lucy Neatby Navigating through each section was fairly intuitive for the most part (although sometimes I would totally miss something which probably is quite obvious to tablet users, which this format seemed geared towards). After so many years of knitting (and designing) socks, I have countless books and patterns in my library, and I find it hard to get excited about most "...

Though I failed to finish my Holla Knits KAL project for last month's event, I am  pleased to say that I made some major progress on the Admiralty pillow - the second pillow piece is done! Blocking it gave me an opportunity to test out a new product from Knitter's Pride which I had seen at TNNA earlier this year and was anxiously awaiting: These new Knit Blockers are the most ingenious blocking tool I think I've ever come across. Having spent a good 15-20 minutes blocking the first pillow side with a ton of T-pins, I found myself wondering where the Knit Blockers had been all my life....because using them to block the second side took UNDER FIVE MINUTES! Needless to say, I am incredibly excited to bust them out whenever I happen to finish the Lory Shawl . I was really hoping this project would be done before the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival this coming weekend, but I am not sure that's a reasonable expectation at this point. However, I am reeeeeaaallly ...

Photo  © Caro Sheridan I hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend; I am excited to be today's stop for the Louet Fall Collection Blog tour! If you haven't seen their new fall collection, click here to check it out on the Louet Blog . There are plenty of knit-worthy sweaters and accessories for fall (and even some crochet-worthy ones, too!). When I signed up for the tour, I immediately went digging through my yarn stash to find all of my GEMS  yarn - turns out, I have quite a bit of Sport on hand! As luck would have it, I had the exact same color of yarn shown for the Emin Cowl, Hat , and Mittens ; it also happens to be one of my absolute favorite colors. Though you probably noticed that all three pieces are listed separately on Ravelry, the actual pattern includes instructions to make all 3, making the $7.50 purchase price an absolute steal! There are two size options for the cowl, and I made the smaller version, which is a close-fitting 20" circumfere...