handmade by stefanie

Last weekend, I finished the Boson Cowl using a gorgeous skein of Merino/Silk fingering yarn in A Midnight Clear from Ancient Arts. The pattern appeared in the 2014 Accessories special issue, which I thought  I had in my library, but when it came time to cast on, I couldn't find the magazine anywhere in my house. Oops! Thank goodness you can buy individual patterns online from Interweave, because I was dead set on this pattern and yarn combination. Both of the stitch patterns were pretty easy to memorize, and the rib pattern for the main part of the cowl was absolutely perfect for travel knitting. The designer is Courtney Spainhower of Pink Brutus Knits ; I've been a fan of her work for a while, but this is the first pattern of hers I've actually knit! It was also my first time using this yarn, and it was absolutely lovely to work with - soft but not splitty, and the resulting fabric has plenty of squish. I also love how the subtle variations in the hand-dyed skein ...

What perfect timing - last weekend, we had our first snowfall, and I finished my Pennant Cardigan from the 10th anniversary issue of Knitscene! It's designed by my pal, Mari Chiba , who is profiled in the issue by none other than....me. I'm super excited to finally have this project off the needles, just in time to wear for the holidays. A rainy Thanksgiving meant our photo shoot had to be held indoors. I started this project in August using 100% yak sport weight yarn from Bijou Basin Ranch; at the time, I knew I wanted to use handspun for the colorwork yoke, but I hadn't even purchased the fiber I'd be using for it! Luckily, a mostly stockinette sport weight sweater takes a long time for me to knit, especially when I have all kind of other projects and KALs to distract me. That allowed me to find the PERFECT gradient roving at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival - a merino/silk braid from Fiber Optic Yarns in the Raven colorway.  On Monday, I share...

You may have noticed I took Monday off from blogging (or perhaps you didn't notice at all, except for now I just drew attention to that fact). I took a four-day weekend to celebrate my "birthday staycation," which was pretty much just four days filled with doing as many craft projects as possible, mostly of the knitting variety. I probably made the most noticeable progress on my yak sweater , which is so. close. to. being. done. Please excuse the indoor photos and lighting, it has been really dark and rainy all week! Check out that oh-so-subtle gradient yoke: The Royals-inspired striped baby cardi with my Spinzilla prize yarn has also seen quite a bit of progress since last week: I continued to work on my one-pattern-repeat-a-day quota for the Miya Shawl KAL, and over the weekend I passed the halfway point - just look at how loooooong and hard-to-get-in-frame it's become! The spinning wheel also got dusted off as I embarked on a sheep to sweater project ...

I've been working on all of my WIPs pretty diligently since last week, but it really doesn't seem like much has been accomplished. There is, however, measurable progress - for instance, I am just 3 inches away from finishing my yak cardi sleeves and joining them to the body of the sweater for the yoke. I've almost finished the left side of the Broad Shoulders sweater (more on that here ), and my Miya shawl continues to grow. My entrelac cowl has definitely grown since last week - I am just zooming along on each wedge section. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a really great on-the-go knitting project, which is why I've made so much progress. It also got an awesome new home in the form of a project bag made for me by Kemper of the Junkyarn Podcast . Thanks, Kemper! Lastly, I've added a few more dino parts to the mix, though I'm not sure I'm going to finish by the end of the month for the Toy KAL I was kinda sorta but not really participating...

Spinzilla started at 12:01 AM on October 5, and I have been spinning up a storm with every free moment I get. Since the start, I have filled a total of 5 bobbins: the three at the bottom are spun from  Louet Jacob fiber, the top right was spun from some of my blending board rolags, and the top right is a braid of fiber from the Cloudlover fiber club. I know my original plan was to wait til Spinzilla was over to ply, but that cake of singles you see in the photo above didn't go so well (the other side is NOT a pretty picture!). I decided to ply all of the Jacob singles into a 3-ply so that my Victoria bobbins could be efficiently cleared, and then I really went for broke, spinning with more blending board rolags and nearly filled a sixth  bobbin! It's safe to say that Spinzilla is off to a great start for me. Of course, I haven't found much time to knit, but I did make some progress on my WIPs over the weekend. For instance, I realized that I hadn't ripped far enou...

It's September! Exciting things are afoot - yesterday, spinner registration for Spinzilla went live, and you can now sign up to be a part of Team Louet North America! I'll be captaining #TeamLouetNA yet again this year, and we have some really awesome prizes up for grabs for our team - click here to read more on the Louet blog . I hope you'll join us! It's been a pretty hectic start to the month, but I've managed to make some measurable progress on my Bijou Basin Ranch cardigan - just look at how sweater-y it's become! I also have made a little bit of progress on my Leonarda wrap ; unfortunately I did make a mistake in one of the rows or elongated garter stitch which took several hours to correct (rather than rip back, I opted to fix each stitch in the row below as I also knit the following row). Over the weekend, I couldn't resist starting a little hat using some of the new yarn from Knit Picks which just arrived, Mighty Stitch . It's a wool/...

After finishing my Delta Hat KAL project last week, I somehow resisted the urge to start any new projects over the weekend. I'm surprised too! I think I made the most progress on my Argent curl, which is soooooo close to being done!  I also put in some time working on my yak sweater  from Knitscene - I am so excited to wear this in the fall. Of course, it's pretty bunchy and scrunchy at the moment, but I think  it's starting to look more sweater-like these days: Probably the most neglected project is the Leonarda Wrap , but even that got a little love at my knitting group over the weekend. There is even noticeable progress since last week, since I have finished the garter section and moved on to the elongated garter section, though it is still at that hard-to-photograph stage I love so much:  That's pretty much it for this week - short and sweet! I'm looking forward to sharing some of my recently-finished projects for babies for this week's FO...

The spinning wheel breakdown of last week definitely hampered my spinning output, coupled with the swift arrival of...the wrong part to fix it! Luckily, it was just an honest mix-up and the correct part is on its way to me. At least, I hope it is - the error was on the end of the shipper, so here's hoping they don't make the same mistake twice! Thankfully, the point of the Tour de Fleece isn't to spin as much yardage as possible - if this had happened during Spinzilla, I would probably be having another in a series of meltdowns right about now. Instead, I'm just trying to enjoy the process of spinning each day and feeling thankful that I do have a second wheel which I enjoy using every bit as much as my Victoria. Over the weekend, I spun singles from 8 oz. of superwash merino/nylon from Cloudlover in a special colorway called Quick's Point : I have yet to ply them together because I got completely distracted by a huge box of fiber which arrived on Monday from...

I realized I never shared my finished handspun pookies on my blog - oops! This pattern is so fun and quick to knit - and it's perfect for handspun yarn! I plan on making more of these cute little guys throughout the summer. My other FO is kind of a big one: my first-ever Knitscene article! I've been keeping this under my hat for quite some time and am SO excited that I can finally let the cat out of the bag (pun intended - sorry!). Look for my designer profile of Mari Chiba Luke in the 10th anniversary issue of Knitscene , along with some really awesome patterns that are a must-knit for fall...I'm having a hard time deciding which one should jump to the top of my queue first, though I think the Pennant Cardi might be THE ONE. If you aren't already a subscriber, you can look for it at your LYS or purchase a copy of the magazine in the Interweave store . Bonus: this weekend, they're having a Fourth of July tent sale and you can save and additional  10%...

Hello there, new sweater! I've kind of been holding out on you: this project has technically been finished since June 10, but I didn't get a chance to block it out til last weekend, and I really didn't want to share it until I had some awesome photos of a totally washed-and-blocked sweater to share! If you've been following my progress, you may already know that I started this project back in April, when I found the perfect skein of hand-dyed grey yarn at the Leading Men Fiber Arts booth at YarnCon. I used the mondo skein Soliloquy in London Fog ( a BFL sock yarn) to knit the yoke of the sweater, and it enabled me to destash two more skeins of yarn from the coffers: Top Draw Socks from Skein Yarn (Knight, the variegated colorway which comprises most of the sweater body) and a skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock I dyed with my own personal color I call Inky. The Lake Michigan Tee is part of Allyson Dykhuizen's collection in the Summer 2015 issue of K...