handmade by stefanie

...Because the pandemic isn't over. Even though a lot of people seem to be bored with it . A friend of ours shared this song on Instagram recently and I think it totally sums up where we are as a country (unfortunately): And so, I'll keep staying home, sewing masks. At the end of July, I sewed my 100th mask, and set a new goal of 200 - which I think I'll meet pretty easily, now that I have figured out an efficient system that works in our new apartment. And I keep ordering fabric because I keep finding more fun prints that I want to wear on my face. Attention, mask-haters: it's actually kind of fun if you can express your personality with your face mask. I believe that's what's known as making lemons out of lemonade?! I mean, look at these two nerds doing a drive-thru coffee pickup: We keep all of our clean masks hanging by the door so that we can grab & go on our way out - and then I also keep ziploc bags with clean masks in my purse and, now that...

After finishing such a long-term project as the chevron socks of doom , I decided to embark on some instant-gratification projects by making lots of tiny toys. There really is nothing more satisfying than a project you can make in a day or two that is also incredibly cute! I started out by mining my leftover yarn bin to make a Compact Cat in Pajamas : I also made a Little Luchador with some leftover yarn; I modified the pattern a bit to match a photo of a Lucha Libre wrestler I found online. I crocheted a stripey slug , which was - spoiler alert! - this month's FreshStitches Kit Club shipment. I love how it turned out! Last but not least, I finished my handspun squirrel late last night! Instead of using floofy yarn to knit the tail (as the pattern called for), I just made it with the same yarn I used for the rest of the squirrel. Some people on Ravelry added fringe to it afterwards in lieu of eyelash/novelty yarn, but I think I might just leave it as-is. Thanks fo...

Bonus: got to try out my new blocking wires! Happy Friday! I am relieved to be back at home base this week. Taking three separate trips in the span of a month is just too much for me, and I'm looking forward to staying put for a while. Besides being stressful, it's hard to keep up with chores, much less start a bigger fibery project. For instance, I haven't had time to spin in the last few weeks because I couldn't block out enough time to process a large amount of fiber in one sitting. You can bet I'll be dusting off the Ladybug this weekend, though! Small projects have been the name of the game, consequently. My primary project for the last trip to KC I took ended up being the Serpentinite Scarf by Carol Feller knit with a skein of Fiesta Yarns' La Luz . Since I was substituting in a yarn that had less yardage than what was specified, I knew I'd have to do some modifications going in. What ended up happening is that I only knit one half of the scarf...