handmade by stefanie

I can't believe that December 1 is tomorrow - where did this month go (or this year, for that matter)?! It's a good thing I am not relying heavily on myself to make gifts for everyone on my list this year - if that were the case, I would be panicking right about now. Instead, I am relying heavily on my Amazon Prime membership to get the job done, and there are only a few handmade gifts on my to-do list for this year. All in all, I am not feeling terribly stressed, at least not for this reason! Over the weekend, I finished the first Berlin sock and started #2: I also have been working on the Matchmaker shawl once more, now that the Curls 2 project is off the needles: That reminds me - time is running out to enter my Curls 2 giveaway (details here if you missed how to enter) . I'll be announcing the winner this Friday, Dec. 2!

I was spinning furiously Sunday evening before Spinzilla drew to a close at midnight and managed to spin nearly all of the fibers I had earmarked for the event (only a half-pound of dyed merino remained unspun). I was hoping to double my usual 3,000-ish yardage of the past few years, but managed to only add about 1k to the usual yardage, finishing at 4034. I probably could have gotten that last bit of fiber spun up if I hadn't taken an ill-fated excursion to Windy Knitty in Andersonville on the same day as the Chicago Marathon (a journey that requires two bus lines, or a bus and a train, if you prefer). Though the event was in the morning and I wasn't trying to take mass transit til the afternoon, the effects of many main streets in Chicago being shut down for the runners could be felt, even at 3pm that same afternoon. Honestly, I'd done ok until the final leg, when the bus I was waiting for wasn't slated to show up for 30 minutes (with an immediate follower -...

I spent most of last weekend finishing up my sample shawl in Lhasa Wilderness (spoiler alert, that's this Friday's post!), and now I'm back to working on the WIPs I had in progress beforehand. The Finial Hat in Woolstok needed the most love - I'd abandoned it just after starting the cabled stitch pattern: I also started - and finished! - the gusset shaping for the second Lightsaber Sock : The handspun crochet blanket continues to grow, but I'm not so sure that a photo will help illustrate the point - it really looks like quite the pile o' yarn at this point, and I need to weave in the many, many yarn ends before going any further. So instead I will show off this photo of a lovely new book by Hunter Hammersen ( Curls 2 ) which arrived on my doorstep yesterday and is tempting me to wind off a skein of yarn that's been in my stash for a bit: That's it for this week - see you back here on Friday for the reveal of my finished sample shawl!

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...

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...

There for a while, it seemed like I always had a yak yarn project on the needles - perhaps it felt that way because I was working on a really long term project, the Pennant Cardi using 100% yak sport weight yarn from Bijou Basin Ranch! At any rate, I was apparently going into yak yarn withdrawal, so over the weekend I excitedly cast on for the Odyssey Cowl using the kit I blogged about on Monday , which included this delightfully variegated skein of Tibetan Dream sock yarn dyed by Miss Babs...and then I promptly ripped out my work (all 4 rounds of it) when i realized I'd managed to twist the cast-on when I joined to knit in the round. Such a rookie mistake, but we all make it sometimes, no matter how long we've been knitting. Late last night, I redid the cast on stitches; later today, I plan to knit the first round of the stitch pattern flat and then  join to work in the round (that way I am much less likely to make the same mistake twice). I've continued to zoom on...

Over the weekend, I Finished. The. Snowflake. Cowl . Instead of starting a long term project (*coughcough Liathite *coughcough*), I decided to start some short(er) term projects instead. For instance, I realized that if I wanted to knit something for my nephew who turns 3 next month, I've got to get cracking. So I picked out a pattern from Huge & Huggable Mochimochi, which Tyler got me for Christmas, and started knitting one of the pieces I could make with the yarn I had on hand until the additional colors I ordered from Knit Picks arrived. On Monday night, I cast on a new hat project for the Quince-along, which is a KAL I heard about on the Fawn Knits Podcast and is basically a chance to knit anything you want using Quince & Co yarns for a chance to win some prizes. Who doesn't like prizes?!There are more details on all that here on Ravelry . I unearthes a skein and a half of Osprey which has been lurking in my stash for several years now, and I'm making up ...

Welcome back to another edition of Stuck on Skinny Yarn. The baby version of the Force Awakens hat is off the needles, but I continue to make slow yet steady progress on the Alegria Hat and Snowflake Cowl  - in fact, both will probably be off the needles in a week's time! The Sensible BFL Socks also grew a few inches since last week:  In light of finishing a project over the weekend, I decided it was probably ok to start another hat project, so long as it wasn't with fingering weight yarn. This sportweight handspun was calling my name - you might recognize it as the yarn which I used for the yoke of my Pennant Cardigan , spun from a gradient braid of Merino/Silk roving from Fiber Optic Yarns.  Curiously, I have to cast on for my Liathite Cardigan  yet. When I measured my gauge swatches, I was slightly off, and I am still trying to decide if I want to knit another swatch on a different size of needles, or if I want to do a little math and figure ou...

The good news is that I finished a lot of projects over the weekend. The bad news is that I didn't start any new ones in their place, and instead just plodded along on any WIPs that remain. So this is going to be a very, very  short post! I'm about halfway done with the sleeves for my Broad Shoulders cardigan . Will I be finished in time for the KAL's end date of next Monday?! Place your bets now! There's no change in the granny square situation , and though I have been working on my Hunter Hammersen hat (say that five times fast), you really can't tell...so there's no use in boring you with a photo. The only project which has truly made a stunning transformation is the crocheted fox hat , which is a few more pieces (and a nightmare of ends to weave in) away from being done. That's it for this week. If you are looking for a little more excitement, I recommend checking out my Monday blog post, which has 4 really great prizes up for grabs! These 4 ...

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 ...

On Monday night I started to have that feeling that I was coming down with something. Lo and behold, I got the cold that's been going around, and spent most of yesterday on the couch, attempting to accomplish some work to-do's (there are no sick days for the self-employed). I can always tell I'm not feeling well when it's even tough to knit, and I had a hard time getting through even the simplest rows on Tuesday night. Thankfully, it was a productive weekend. I spun both gradient singles for my yak cardigan and am in the process of plying them together this week. I also conquered the back piece of my Broad Shoulders KAL sweater ; all that remains is the right front, two sleeves, and a button band - I can totally  finish all that by December 13! My Spinzilla prize was a gift certificate to Purl & Loop, and I received my order on Monday and couldn't resist casting on for a stripey baby sweater using Allyson Dykhuizen's Baby Sweater Buffet  pattern:  ...

What a difference a week has made....for some projects! With the Royals in the World Series, I found myself doing a tour of dimly-lit bars to watch as many games as I could (my very lucky husband actually got to go to Game 2 at Kauffman Stadium last Wednesday!). This meant that I needed to work on projects which didn't require too much of my attention, and so my go-to project became a pair of socks which I never blog about (more on them later this week) and the sleeves for my Pennant Cardi . The night the Royals won the World Series, I finished the sleeves and was ready to join them to the body of the sweater as soon as I got home! Of course, now I need to spin the yarn which I'll be using for the colorwork in the yoke.....so this project will be on the back burner til that happens. Even though my Broad Shoulders KAL project doesn't leave the house, I managed to make some some decent progress - as you can see, I finished the left front and am now about halfway through...

Now that Spinzilla is done, I have a lot of singles to ply since this year's strategy did not include plying during the event (for the most part). I'll be sharing my Spinzilla results later this week, and this weekend I plan on plying some of these projects so that they are officially done . In the mean time....my grey knitting project streak continues. While the Leonarda shawl is officially off the needles (but still in need of a good blocking), I have replaced it with....another grey shawl. I promise that my next  project will be in a non-grey yarn, but I couldn't resist this new cashmere yarn from Bijou Basin Ranch for the Miya Shawl KAL which started on Monday: While traveling last week, I left the Broad Shoulders sweater in Chicago, but I have been working on it since arriving back in town and there has been some progress made since last week: I did happen to take my two-at-a-time sleeves for my Pennant cardi, and made some decent progress on the trip: N...

I find myself with only grey projects on the needles right now! How did that happen?! It seems like I get stuck in little color phases, and this one is all grey, all the time! Each project is from a different portion of the grey spectrum - for instance, my project for the Sweater of Broad Shoulders KAL  is kind of a brownish-grey (the colorway is named Mousey , after all). It's been coming along a bit slowly after a few false starts, but last weekend I finally made it though the first two stitch patterns! I am still plugging away on my other  gray sweater , which is knit with Bijou Basin Ranch yak yarn in a nice, crisp light grey color (I think it has an ever-so-slight bluish hue). I'm using the Pennant Cardi pattern from the fall issue of Knitscene. Yep, That's a lot of grey stockinette! Last but not least, I am still chugging away on the Leonarda Wrap ...which is more of a purple-y grey. Everything was going well till I realized I'd incorrectly knit a crucial r...