handmade by stefanie

Welcome back to another guest post from the Take 5 Blog Series ! Today's blogger is the top spinner for #TeamLouet for the past 2 years of Spinzilla; last year, she was among the overall Top 5 spinners for the entire event, clocking in at 26,384 yards! She definitely played a huge role in our team's third place finish last year, and I consider Alexis to be our not-so-secret weapon. I asked her to share some of her tips for spinning at maximum speed with my blog readers this week. Enjoy! If you’re thinking ahead, July's Tour de Fleece  can be a great warm up for Spinzilla , a time to try new techniques and fibres and maybe even time yourself to discover how to maximize yardage in your available spinning time. Of course there are other times one might give a thought to speedy spinning…...winter fast approaching, dire need of a new sweater? Or perhaps a sheep to shawl competition (I’ve never participated in one but I would love to)?  Fibre stash threatening to take over yo...

The handspinning obsession continues! I was recently sent 4oz of BFL spinning fiber from Mountain Colors to try out, and as soon as it arrived I couldn't wait to give it a spin - I don't think it lasted more than a few days in the house before I started to play with it. This is the Sun River colorway, which is described on the website as "bright violet and red-orange blended with deep burgundy and wine." Definitely an apt description! The 100% Blue Faced Leicester top is available in 28 hand-dyed colorways total ( click here to see all of the Mountain Colors yarn and fiber offerings; about midway down the page, you can see info about their spinning fiber and available colorway). At first touch, I would have classified this BFL to be in the middle range of general BFL softness; after spinning it, however, I would definitely move the needle towards the softer end of the spectrum, however. It DEFINITELY became softer as I spun with it! I decided to predraft my fi...

Last Friday, after a very long week, I decided to take the afternoon off of work....to reorganize my handspun yarn and fiber stash?! Indeed, that is what I ended up doing, and I discovered that I have accumulated SO MUCH handspun yarn that it no longer fit in the medium sized bin I've been using the past several years....and it was time to graduate to a much larger 66 qt. container. Naturally, this new container is now completely filled, as is the medium sized bin which formerly housed my handspun yarn and now kinda sorta but not really holds all of my spinning fiber stash: As you saw last week , I was already inspired to start making projects with handspun yarn, and this little exercise has only reinforced everything! On Saturday, I decided that I needed to make a baby sweater with some delightfully squishy handspun polwarth yarn I'd also dyed myself (because just knitting a baby gift with normal yarn is no longer enough). I have a couple of old standby baby sweaters I ...

Congrats to  sisterrobinson , you are the lucky winner! I will contact you on Ravelry to arrange for the delivery of your prize. Thanks to everyone who entered this month's giveaway; if you didn't win, I encourage you to visit the ModeKnit Yarns website and give their yarns a try! Also, I'm having a luxury sock yarn mini skein grab bag sale in my Etsy shop , this week only! Enter HBSBLOG at checkout to get $3 off your order now through Midnight CDT on Friday, June 26. All US orders ship free via USPS First Class! I've added some pretty stellar yarns to the already-awesome lineup. There are hand-dyed yarns such Anzula, Leading Men Fiber Arts, and Manos del Uruguay plus other high-quality yarns such as Spud & Chloe Fine, Louet Gems Fingering, and more - and if you are looking for particular colors (or have other reasonable requests), I am happy to do what I can to put together a grab bag you'll love. You can see a full list of yarns & get more info abou...

Hello there, new sweater! I've kind of been holding out on you: this project has technically been finished since June 10, but I didn't get a chance to block it out til last weekend, and I really didn't want to share it until I had some awesome photos of a totally washed-and-blocked sweater to share! If you've been following my progress, you may already know that I started this project back in April, when I found the perfect skein of hand-dyed grey yarn at the Leading Men Fiber Arts booth at YarnCon. I used the mondo skein Soliloquy in London Fog ( a BFL sock yarn) to knit the yoke of the sweater, and it enabled me to destash two more skeins of yarn from the coffers: Top Draw Socks from Skein Yarn (Knight, the variegated colorway which comprises most of the sweater body) and a skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock I dyed with my own personal color I call Inky. The Lake Michigan Tee is part of Allyson Dykhuizen's collection in the Summer 2015 issue of K...

Now that I have a long-term project off the needles, I'm excited to work on some smaller projects which are a little more instant-gratification! This week, I'm working on a trio of Tiny Hedgehogs from the kit I bought at Windy Knitty a while back (you can also buy one here on the Mochimochiland website ). I also am working on some crocheted baby converse booties for the next wave of kiddos who will be arriving later this year. I'm not sure I'm totally sold on this particular pattern (it's available for free on Ravelry, and you KNOW how I feel about free patterns!), but I'll see it through to the end. Who knows, maybe it'll all come together and look awesome! And then, late Monday night, after a very eventful evening of monsoon-like rain, flooding, tornado sirens, and a Blackhawks Stanley Cup win, I decided to start some Pookies with little bits of leftover handspun yarn....as one does! Those are all of my WIPs for now - don't forget to check ...

In the first of many reviews and giveaways made possible by my TNNA Marly Bird Designer Dinner swag bag, I'm pleased to share a review of a new-to-me yarn that I have been seeing around Ravelry and instagram: hand-dyed yarn from Annie Modesitt. It seems like the current trend for designers is to branch out into other related avenues such as stitch markers, project bags, and, of course....yarn! ModeKnit Yarn  is hand-dyed in Minnesota in shaded solids, variegated colorways, and the ever-popular gradients, which are new this season. They offer four different yarn blends and three different yarn weights (lace, fingering and worsted), and the color options are always changing (you can view more info about the yarn bases and colors here on the ModeKnit website ). I received two sample skeins of ModeWerk Flow (they use the word " Flow " to indicate gradient colorways in yarn, and I think they are available across several bases within the brand), which is a machine washa...

The stack of hats has grown over the last few weeks , and it couldn't be better timing - my aunt is about to begin her chemotherapy. I have already mailed the hats to their destination, and I hope that when they arrive, they cheer her up a bit, despite the circumstances. The modified Rikke Hat in Canopy Fingering and Skein Cashmerino turned out quite nicely: I also finished a super-bright Bowdoin Hat from the new issue of Holla Knits using a skein of Sincere Sheep Tenacious Sock in Vit C. I only wish I had gotten a better image of the finished hat, because it looked really great - but this is the best one I snapped before sending it off to its new home: Also, for any Chicagoans who might be reading this, my pal Heidi from the Hands Occupied blog is hosting a WWKIP day meetup tomorrow - click here for details. It would be great to see you there!  You should also probably check out the new video podcast Heidi has started with Allyson Dykhuizen of Sweat...

Over the weekend, I knit through the entire skein of Top Draw Socks for the body of my Lake Michigan Tee and made the switch to the final color: a one-of-a-kind colorway I made up when I was working at Lorna's Laces which I dubbed inky. I'm working on the final step - the chevron-stitch border - and should have this off the needles by the end of this week, with any luck! I also started a few new projects since last week: first, I cast on for a simple baby hat using some yarn from my Marly Bird Designer Dinner Swag Bag (more on that later): And then I broke out the crochet hook and started this tiny fish , which is the most recent shipment from the FreshStitches kit club: That pretty much covers my WIPs for this week, but I look forward to starting a few more new projects once the Lake Michigan Tee is officially off the needles!

Welcome back to the Take 5 Blog Series , where I ask my fellow designer, bloggers and other fiber folks to share their top five lists - completely unfiltered! Today, the editor of Holla Knits (and blogger/designer extraordinaire) Allyson Dykhuizen shares some of her favorite knitting trends for this summer. This post is also part of the Holla Knits Blog Tour which kicked off last month and lasts through June 9th. I hope this inspires you to keep knitting all summer long, and don't forget to click here to get caught up on past Take 5 blog posts ! Summer knitting is upon us, and while some knitters abandon their needles for lighter, more summery crafts, I reach for my needles even more during summer! There are so many fun trends that pop up in summer that I can’t wait to make a knit version of. So when Stefanie asked me to write about some knitting trends I love, I thought I’d write about what I’m excited about this summer, and share my styling tips, as well as some grea...