handmade by stefanie

I find myself with only grey projects on the needles right now! How did that happen?! It seems like I get stuck in little color phases, and this one is all grey, all the time! Each project is from a different portion of the grey spectrum - for instance, my project for the Sweater of Broad Shoulders KAL  is kind of a brownish-grey (the colorway is named Mousey , after all). It's been coming along a bit slowly after a few false starts, but last weekend I finally made it though the first two stitch patterns! I am still plugging away on my other  gray sweater , which is knit with Bijou Basin Ranch yak yarn in a nice, crisp light grey color (I think it has an ever-so-slight bluish hue). I'm using the Pennant Cardi pattern from the fall issue of Knitscene. Yep, That's a lot of grey stockinette! Last but not least, I am still chugging away on the Leonarda Wrap ...which is more of a purple-y grey. Everything was going well till I realized I'd incorrectly knit a crucial r...

Spinzilla is almost here! In just one week, I'll be spinning with my excellent teammates on Team Louet North America. This is my third time spinning with Team Louet (and also serving as the team captain), and I think we are definitely in contention for unseating Team Fancy Tiger Craft for first place. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I have been prepping a LOT of rolags for Spinzilla using my new Louet Blending board . Part of this is because the blending board is just so incredibly fun & addicting to use - but the other part is because I am going to be traveling for the second half of the event, and I want to make sure that I have plenty of fiber that is easy to use while on-the-go. Small, portable rolags seem tailor-made for travel spinning! This year, I am going to take a totally different approach to my Spinzilla spinning: I don't plan on plying ANY of my projects til after the event. I have plied in years past, and I just want to try something new, e...

I've been anxiously awaiting the release of WEEKEND: Simple, Modern Knits by Jen Geigley this fall, and I'm so excited to share ithis new book with you today! It seems like indie publishing is where it's at right now - some of my favorite collections have been self-published (or are slated to be self-published, pending their crowdfunding campaigns). I love that designers are taking it upon themselves to make the projects they want to make and overseeing all aspects of the process to fully realize that creative vision. It's a lot of work from start to finish,  and seeing it turn out so well is always exciting. For WEEKEND, I was fortunate to play a small role in helping it take shape - I was the tech editor for several of the designs. At the time, the concept of a book seemed really esoteric to me, and seeing the finished result of all of Jen's hard work (and her photographer friends Joelle Blanchard, Geof Fischer and Joey Leaming)  is really incredible. Asi...

Today I have an extra-special bonus post from Teresa Gregorio, who is working on an exciting new project with Leah Coccari-Swift called Great Northern, a pattern collection inspired by Twin Peaks (more on that in a sec!). Teresa is a talented designer and blogger whom I met at TNNA earlier this year, where we shared our love of craft beer and I got her hooked on Untappd!  Leah and Teresa are raising funds for their project via Kickstarter ; as you may or may not already know, I absolutely love supporting cool projects on Kickstarter, especially when they involve knitting (see: Midwestern Knits , Wooly App , etc). They already have my pledge - I hope you'll consider supporting them too! Without further ado, I'll let Teresa share more about this project along with her list of the Top 5 Knitwear Themes inspired by the show! Knitters and sweaters. We go together like cherry and pie. Or like Audrey and Dale.  Or Norma and Ed. I’m alluding to Twin Peaks; for those who may...

Last Wednesday night, I discovered that I had inexplicably cast on 100 extra stitches from my Broad Shoulders KAL project. I don't even know how that's possible, but that's just the kind of crazy stuff my brain seems to enjoy doing lately. Thank goodness I discovered the mistake early on - having 5 extraneous stitches at the end of the first row of the first stitch pattern section was a major tip-off...though you would think that the unusually large size of the ribbing would have been my first clue. At any rate, I ripped out the entire thing and started again. By the start of the weekend, I was ready to start the first stitch pattern once more, and I am now halfway through that section: It's been slow going for most of my projects because there is just so much stuff  going on right now. I'm not even finished with the third clue of the Perspectives MKAL ! The final clue comes out tomorrow, so I definitely need to put some hustle in my bustle to get caught up:...

Congratulations to A Van Ness and megnolia13, you have both won super-adorable animal tote bags from Gleener - just get in touch with me via Ravelry to arrange for the delivery of your prize! Thanks to everyone who entered this giveaway; stay tuned for later this week, when I announce a BONUS giveaway for this month! Recently, the folks at Love + Leche sent me some lotion bars to review. I am kind of a product junkie, especially when it comes to natural products, so I was pretty excited to give these a try. They let me choose which lotion bar I was sent, so I went for the Citrus Rose lotion bar in the shape of sleeping cats (act surprised, ok?). They also included two generous-sized sample lotion bars in the Cedarwood and Lemongrass scents - and I have to say, I loved all three. What bothers me about a lot of products in general is the fake chemical fragrance that is added in lieu of essential oils (even from products claiming to be natural). That's definitely not the cas...

It's been such a busy week, I haven't had a chance to share all of the awesome stuff I bought at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival last weekend! Being on a budget and having some very specific pre-Spinzilla needs, I made a list of what I was looking for at the show ahead of time. Believe it or not, this is me sticking to that list - really! My only yarn purchase was a skein of Xanadu  yarn from Bijou Basin Ranch. It's their new fingering weight cashmere and I had  to get my mitts on it. So soft! Are you surprised to see that I chose grey?? My next quest was to find some gradient roving for my yak cardigan because I want to use a handspun gradient for the yoke colorwork detail. I was 99% sure that I would find what I needed in the Fiber Optic booth - and I was right! I also wanted to get a fair amount of either grey or black alpaca fiber to blend with colorful bits of fiber on my new blending board. Naturally, I ended up coming home with both. Oops! The ...

On Monday, the Sweater of Broad Shoulders KAL kicked off ( click here if you missed it! ). I've made a modest bit of progress since Monday - hello, 1x1 ribbing! I am still plugging away on my  other  gray sweater , but I feel like I'm basically posting the same progress photo each week, even though the sweater is just a little  bit longer each time! That's also how I'm feeling about the Leonarda wrap I have on the needles - progress is being made, but is it really exciting to see the same photo of a blobby work in progress? I'm assuming no (correct me if I'm wrong in the comments!) and skipping over these two projects to get to what's actually seeing the most noticeable change....for example, I'm finished with the second clue of the Perspectives MKAL and anxiously awaiting Clue #3, which comes out tomorrow! Unbelievably, I've resurrected the destash mitered square blanket this week thanks to the #BlanketMadness KAL that's happening on I...

The Sweater of Broad Shoulders KAL  starts today in the Midwestern Knits Ravelry Group !  Read more about this Chicago-inspired sweater here on the Sweatshop of Love blog . We'll be knitting along for the next three months here on Ravelry and I hope you'll join us! There are several other KALS happening this fall featuring projects from Midwestern Knits (click here for more info). If you don't own a copy of Midwestern Knits , you're in luck - TODAY ONLY, you can get 20% off your eBook purchase by entering the coupon code KALKickOff at checkout!  KAL Prizes Include (everyone who finished by the deadline will win): Pattern of your choice from Allyson Dykhuizen, Carina Ferguson, or pattern designer Grand prizes include (3 grand prize winners): MWK project bag River Walk kit (yarn + project bag) Screen printed tote bag But guess what? I have an extra-special surprise, just for my blog readers: 2 lucky people will win their choice of a super-cute anima...

Recently, I was given a test dye lot of yarn to play around with. I wasn't quite sure how much yardage was in the test skein, so I figured that one of Hunter Hammersen's Curls would be a great way to test out the yarn and knit a project without fear of playing yarn chicken. Eventually, I'd like to knit all of the Curls patterns, but this is only my second project from the book. I chose the Argent pattern, which ended up to be fairly easy to memorize. The yarn base here is a 50/50 yak and silk from Bijou Basin Ranch called Shangri-La . It's absolutely gorgeous, both to work with and the resulting fabric. It really makes dealing with those tiny needles worth it, and after seeing what beautiful drape the resulting project has, I may have to reconsider my stance on using lace weight yarn in future projects!

While I wait for the Broad Shoulders KAL to start next Monday, September 14, I'm trying to focus on making progress on what's already on the needles and avoiding the ever-present temptation to start something new. And I've mostly been successful, believe it or not (I would totally understand if you were in the "not" camp)!  I've added another few inches to the yak sweater  - the body is now about 10 inches from CO edge: There has been just a little bit of progress on the Leonarda Wrap since last week:  A lot of my knitting time has been spent on the first clue of the Perspectives MKAL - I'm ready for the next clue which will come out tomorrow!  Lastly, I had started a project last week with my handspun flax which I had forgotten to share on my last WIP Wednesday post. I'm using the Tile Stitch Washcloth pattern from Knitter's Stash, which I've modified slightly for a larger gauge.  That's it for this week, thanks fo...

This was originally supposed to post on 8/31 - but you know what? I didn't hit the "publish" button at the appropriate time, which is really the most important step! I think that last week was the first time in at least a few years that I've missed a Monday post, the irony being that this was totally ready to go, I just had to pull the trigger. At any rate, August is over and September is here, which means that my favorite time of year (autumn) is just around the corner. Hooray! Before I get ahead of myself, however, I need to evaluate those pesky monthly goals which I've gotten quite good at neglecting. At this point, I am questioning why I continue to do this each month, as the results are mostly me feeling bad for neglecting my original set of goals because new and more interesting things keep presenting themselves each month. Look! Shiny! There is no end to shiny things to distract me, and even when I am ultra-modest in terms of goal setting, I can't qui...