handmade by stefanie

Now that it's been gifted, I can share this FO here on my blog! I recently knit the Newborn Vertebrae cardigan for a family member who's expecting a baby later this spring. The pattern is available for free on here Ravelry , and I have seen so many cute projects posted on Instagram, Ravelry and blogs in my reader that I couldn't resist making one of my own. I used a beautiful skein of hand-dyed yarn from Anzula , a fingering weight blend of Seacell and merino called Sebastian . The colorway, Curry, is the most gorgeous color of yellow I've ever seen - and perfect for a unisex baby project! While I think the resulting garment is cute (and the folks I gifted it to certainly loved it), I can't say I was totally in love with the pattern. For whatever reason, I seemed to be cursed from the start - I keep messing up the decreases as I knit and had to rip back a few times. I also am not totally sold on the frontless cardigan for a baby - or for anyone, for that matt...

(Apparently I'm writing all of my blog headlines this week as though they are campy movie titles...) I have spent a lot of time working on two sweaters that haven't been mentioned in quite a while on this blog - the first is the Fieldwork Cardigan , which I seamed late last week and began the arduous task of knitting the edging over the weekend. On the plus side, all of the many ends are woven in from alternating skeins as I knit, so I'll just have a few ends to contend with when it's all said and done. Here's a shot before I started the edgings - it's looking so sweater-like! For those of you who are fans of PomPom Quarterly , you can now preview all of the patterns from the fall issue on Ravelry. Yet again, there are some really gorgeous designs; I don't know how they do it, but this is fast becoming my #1 favorite knitting magazine. It may be pricey to order the print copy, but it's totally worth it ( click here to read my review of Issue 5...

After the last several months of knitting primarily for others, I am very happy to indulge in a little selfish knitting for the start of this year. I haven't made too many resolutions for 2013 thus far, but I do know this: I need to knit myself more sweaters this year. It just needs to happen. I also would like to fold this in with another ongoing goal I challenge myself with each year: destashing! I have many sweater's-worth quantities of yarn in my stash, and it's criminal that they haven't become beautiful wardrobe staples by now. I finished the lacy top I was knitting with Bijou Basin Ranch's yak/silk laceweight yarn, Shangri-La (thought I still need to photograph it and share it with the world at large), so I decided to cast on for another dolman-style top using some sock yarn for my stash and  breaking my cardigans-only rule for sweater-making yet again. Go figure! While I'd love to make the Roxborough Dolman with the yarn specified, Canopy Finger...

I've clearly given up on the whole three-at-a-time rule for WIPs; that's long since gone out the window. In addition to the four projects already on the needles, I've added my first-ever entrelac project to the mix, and will be casting on for the WestKnits Mystery Shawl KAL today. The more the merrier, right? It's well-documented that I've been wanting to give entrelac a try for quite some time (see here , here , here and here , for example).  I haven't done anything to act on that impulse until now, however.  Last month, I signed up for Gwen Bortner's entrelac class on Craftsy , though I thought it would be better to wait til after the madness of TNNA before getting started.  Last weekend, I watched the first few lessons and was surprised at how EASY (not to mention, addictive) entrelac really is! Like so many things in knitting, looks are deceiving - while the entrelac fabric looks intricate and the charts seem complicated and intimidating, the tec...