handmade by stefanie

I honestly thought I would come back from last month's trip to Germany with a finished project or two, but as usual, I greatly overestimated how much time I would spend knitting while I was away. You'd think a 9 hour plane ride (one way) would be productive, but that certainly wasn't the case for me, unfortunately! I have since finished the projects I took to Germany, and now I have just two projects in play, both of which are blue: The crochet project on the top is the Calm Cowl in Artyarns Merino Cloud that I started on the flight back to the US. I haven't logged much crocheting time since arriving home, but it has grown a little since last week. The other project pictured above is actually an IOU from the holidays, a pair of striped socks to commemorate the Royals 2015 season for Tyler (each color will represent a win or loss at an away or home game). The 2016 season opener is just a week away this past Sunday, so I figured I better get my butt in gear! Thou...

Now that I've recovered from my trip to Germany and gotten back to "normal" life, I should probably share some of my photos from H+H , right? This was my first time attending this trade show, which is one of the largest in the world. The company I work for, Stitchcraft Marketing , had a booth where we represented 4 of our clients - here I am wearing a gorgeous shawl pattern knit with Bijou Basin Ranch  yarn, the Khyber Pass Shawl from Owlcat Designs. The designer, Simone, was kind enough to lend me the sample for the show! The show floor was absolutely amazing - some of the booths were like their own little universe. I shared a lot of photos already on my Instagram feed , so I've tried to pick some different photos to share here - all of which were taken by my husband, Tyler, who was our official H+H photographer.  KnitPro Lana Grossa Guterman Lana Grossa (again) C. Pauli Rebecca Toft UK There was also quite a bit of knitte...

File Under: When will I learn? I went to Germany with the foolish notion that I would just bring home a few souvenir skeins of yarn and that would be that. I've shown a little restraint at the last few shows I've been to, but that wasn't the case for this trip. First, I happened upon a yarn shop in Berlin near where I was staying quite by accident - and while they didn't stock Wollmeise, they did have some very lovely handpainted yarns from Schoppenwolle and Austermann. These 3 came home with me (and I honestly thought that was IT for the yarn - pretty funny, right?!): Stash enhancement started innocently enough at H+H...but before I knew it, I had quite a ridiculous amount of skeins and other knitting-related items that I had to cram into my suitcase. First world problems, I know. Rather than (re)sharing the dimly lit photo I posted here on Instagram while still in Cologne, I've taken some nicer shots that really show everything off. First, I had a little blowo...

On Monday, we traveled back to the US from Cologne, Germany - a long trip which involved a cab ride to the airport, an hourlong flight to Berlin, a somewhat confusing transfer to a huge Airbus which we were taken to via bus from the boarding gate, and the 9 hour transatlantic flight back home. Going through customs, changing our Euros back to dollars, and getting our luggage was a cake walk in comparison. And then there was the 20 minute ride home via the CTA Blue line, complete with a passenger having a very loud and angry phone conversation in our train car - ah, it's good to be home! Doorstep to doorstep, I think we were in transit some 18 hours. Pretty exhausting but totally worth it because Germany was awesome. I can't wait to share more posts with you about it, but for now, I just want to get back to "normal" and share my current WIPS. First off are the projects I started before the trip - the Boson Cowl in Ancient Arts Merino/Silk Fingering: And a simple ...

At last, the mystery of the weird blobby knit pieces is solved! All this time, I have been making parts of a stuffed toy truck for our nephew Ethan's third birthday: He's completely obsessed with the color red right now - to the point that anything that isn't red is doomed to be ignored by him, I think. I think he liked it, and I had fun making it, so mission accomplished! Yarn and pattern details here on Ravelry .

My two-at-a-time Tortie Cat socks are officially done, just in time for my trip to Germany. I'm probably going to wear these on my trip! For the leg, I used the stitch pattern from Hunter Hammersen's Knowledge of What Was Sensible socks from Fine Things for Plain Occasions . Then, I put in placeholder yarn for an afterthought heel and switched to stockinette stitch for the foot.  I think I'm finally on board with 2-at-a-time socks on circular needles with magic loop. As much as I've enjoyed knitting socks with DPNs, it sure is nice to have two perfectly matched socks finished at the same time. What's kind of funny about this pair is that one sock is a little darker than the other, something that can happen with hand-dyed yarn (that's why it's usually recommended to alternate skeins every other row, so that you can minimize these differences). I split this skein in half by weight and there was no way I wanted to split it into fourths and juggle 4 s...

As you probably guessed, I've been working hard to finish projects that are already on the needles so that I can start a few new projects when I'm in Germany for the H+H Show. Over the weekend, I finished my secret knitting project of blobby proportions - it took a good, solid afternoon of watching a Royals spring training game to finish that sucker up, but I think it turned out well and I plan to share the FO photos next week, once it's been gifted. After that, I set my sights on the Tortie Cat Socks ; on Sunday night, I finished the toes, and this week I am now working on the afterthought heels so that I can officially move this project into the "done" pile! I did start another handspun baby bear hat so that I had a simple knit I could take on-the-go; on Monday, I found myself randomly at the International Home & Housewares show at McCormick Place here in Chicago, which was a total trip. Seriously, that show was bonkers. I was so dumbfounded, the only...

Well, this is probably the fastest I have ever knit a shawl, especially while working on other projects at the same time! I cast on for the Sail Shawl on February 12th and had it off the needles by February 25! Of course, blocking took a little longer to get around to, but I finally did it this week and look at how awesome it turned out: The yarn is a mini skein kit from Wonderland Yarns in a colorway that was specially dyed for the Fiberista Club this month, Rogers Park. This pattern was totally addictive - I couldn't stop knitting because I was excited to make it to the next color block. And here is the finished shawl, which is a soft and squishy asymmetrical shawl that I can hopefully figure out how to wear (I find non-rectangular items a little difficult to style). Even so, it was really fun to knit; I thoroughly enjoyed both the yarn and the process!

Late last week, I came down with the flu and was really down for the count, hence the brief hiatus from blogland. Once I came back to the land of the living, I took stock and realized that I've been pushing myself a little too hard in pretty much every area in my life, and I need to dial back wherever I can. So, I will be posting a little less frequently for the next month or so in an attempt to achieve a little more work/life balance. I'll still post weekly, but three posts every week just isn't sustainable at the moment. Not much progress has been made since last week, unfortunately. The first few days I had the flu, I could barely knit at all, which to me is the worst part of being sick. Eventually I got to the point where I could get a few rounds knitted on my Tortie Cat socks before I had to rest - so the essentially look the same as last week. Now that I'm feeling better, I've been trying to focus most of my knitting time on my top secret project, which need...