handmade by stefanie

When I became a Patternworks affiliate not too long ago ( click here if you missed the announcement ), I was offered a chance to receive a free product to review. Since they carry a lot of things I already love & use, I wanted to choose something that was totally new to me. I decided to give Ewe Ewe's Wooly Worsted a try because it's one of those yarns I've always meant to try knitting with, but just never got around to it. I remember spotting this yarn several years ago at my first TNNA, which I believe was also theirs as well. At the time, they had just 1 weight of yarn in a pretty palette of about 8 or so colors. Now they have expanded to include a host of other colors in both worsted & sport weights. The Wooly Worsted Color Wheel, courtesy of eweewe.com . Wooly Worsted in a machine washable 100% merino yarn that is spun in Italy, and it's got plenty of squish.  I was surprised to discover that this was a 3-ply yarn (I thought for sure it'd be 4...

The arm is ever-so-slowly getting better, but I am still working with limited time that can be spent knitting on any given day. I am trying to chip away at the various sock projects I have going, but since I can only spend about 30 minutes working on a sock project each day, that makes for some glacial progress. I did manage to hit a milestone on Tyler's Royals Socks , however - I put in the bright green waste yarn for the afterthought heel. Last weekend, I also finished some non-sock projects, which I decided was a great opportunity to cast on for some DK and worsted-weight projects. The first is using this skein of Powder River yarn from Mountain Meadow Wool; I cast on for the Merope Mitts using my favorite DPNs, Marblz. Next, I started an Astrid Hat with a skein of a new yarn called Naturally Nazareth, which will be debuting at TNNA next month from Kraemer Yarns . I'll be sharing more about this yarn once I finish this hat, but for now, I can tell you that I am real...

Today is my friend/colleague/mentor's birthday, so I can finally share this FO project! I knit Ysolda Teague's Nathaniel pattern using some of my handspun yarn from Louet's Dorper top . The fiber itself has a in interesting story, because Dorper sheep aren't typically known for their fiber when it comes to making yarn; they are considered a "hair" breed, which means that they don't really produce wool. However, this fiber comes from a flock of Dorper that has been specially bred to create a spinnable fiber with a long staple length (you can read more about that here on Louet's blog ). I'm pretty sure I spun this yarn during last year's Tour de Fleece, and I enjoyed knitting with it as much as I did spinning with it!

It's an unusual WIP Wednesday! Though, I have many, may WIPs, most of them are still in hibernation until my arm issues resolve. So, currently I am working on crocheting a cute little bunny with some hand-dyed yarn I bought at YarnCon last month: ( yarn and pattern details here in my Ravelry notebook ) Since spinning is another activity I can do while waiting for my left arm to get back to normal, I decided to start spinning the two Foxy Batts I bought in the Yarn Hollow booth at Ply Away last month. Tilly is guarding my first single, and I'll be spinning another to ply with it: I've been working on self care to get back to my regular knitting routine as soon as possible, and I'm getting closer, but I'm not there yet. Over the weekend, I was able to finish a project that's been on the needles since mid-April, the brioche cowl with 2 colors of Art Yarns Merino Cloud (you can find Artyarns yarn here at Patternworks ) . ( yarn and pattern details here...

As I work through some issues that have been preventing me from knitting recently, I realized that sharing some of what's worked for me might be helpful to others. I think we've all had this issue at one point or another - and when all you want to do is knit, self care can be the one thing that you let slip (I assume I'm not the only one here....wouldn't we ALL rather be knitting?!). Over the 10+ years I've knitted, I have occasionally experienced hand, wrist or arm pain - almost always in my left arm, despite the fact that I'm right handed...or perhaps that's the cause?! At any rate, I have learned to manage said pain pretty effectively over the years, but recently I had a huge flare-up that I think was brought on by two factors: extended working hours typing at my laptop and knitting ALL THE SOCKS. For whatever reason, my left arm and hand grip the daylights out of a sock project. I had moved away from knitting socks as my primary project in the past...

As noted on Wednesday's post, I've been having some issues with my left arm and have had to take a break from knitting (this week's posts have mostly been stumble typed with just my right hand). Thankfully, I am still able to spin without pain, and I've completed both of these projects since last Thursday. First, I spun the braid of Merino/Bamboo I bought from October House at Ply Away last month. I did a fractal single which I then chain plied, and I don't know that I would chain ply another Merino/Bamboo single again. The resulting yarn is a little funky in places, and some of the fuzz would collect in a pill as I plied, which was a little annoying. This would have been much better suited to a two-ply - but live and learn, I guess! Next, I tackled the three beautiful striped batts I bought from Essential Fiber at YarnCon, which was also last month. Opening the first batt was pretty exciting, it was like it went on for days! Each batt is a mix of fibe...

There's been absolutely no progress on all of the knitting projects from last week's post - no exaggerating! As the week wore on, it became clear that the issues in my left hand and arm weren't going to resolve unless I took a little break from knitting all the socks. What really kicks things up is typing, but unfortunately I don't have the option to skip work for a week. Of course, I still needed to amuse myself somehow... first, I tried arm knitting, which I always thought was lame. This assumption was quickly confirmed as I fussed with some very large yarn to produce a disappointingly floppy fabric. I know some people enjoy it, but it just wasn't for me - if I want to whip something up quickly, I would much rather crochet....which is what I ended up doing for most of the weekend! I completed a pretty cowl from Crochet With One Sheepish Girl using 2 skeins of my own handspun merino yarn. It's so soft and squishy....I may have to keep it for myself! ...

As I mentioned during my Ply Away recap, I took a class about Fractal Spinning that was taught by Jillian Moreno and have come home with toms of exciting ideas to try out. Of course, my first order of business was to knit swatches with my class samples so that I could see the finished products. Last weekend, I finished and blocked all 3 swatches using one of my favorite blocking tools from Knitter's Pride: Knitter's Pride Knit Blockers at Patternworks My first swatch is a 2-ply spun from fiber dyed in an ABCABC repeating pattern. I divided the fiber in half and spun the first ply with one of the halves as-is; the second half was divided into fourths and then spun in sequential order to preserve the color pattern. My second swatch is a 3-ply spun from fiber dyed in a palindrome pattern. I began with splitting the fiber into thirds for each ply; the first ply was spun as-is, the second ply was spun with the fiber further divided into thirds, and the third was spun with t...

It's pretty much the usual suspects this week. I've been trying to work a bit on each project on the needles so that there is somewhat visible progress; probably the most measurable progress from last week can be seen with my Ancient Arts socks , which are almost ready for the heel. I'm still working on the gusset decreases for the Light Saber socks , but check out my new project bag that coordinates perfectly with the yarn! The Royals socks have also seen some action; the actual team has had a bit of a losing streak on the road and I hoped that picking these socks back up would help pull them out of it....and I'm not sure I can credit knitting on these socks for making that happen, but the day after I started working on them again, they did seem to come alive again. Works for me! Unfortunately, all of the sock projects I have on the needles (along with typing for 9 hours a day) seem to be aggravating my golfer's elbow, so I'm going to have to pace mys...