handmade by stefanie

My favorite yarn/fiber event took place here in Chicago last weekend - YarnCon ! I went with a friend to shop the marketplace for a few hours on Saturday afternoon and managed to make only 1 purchase: 4 skeins of gorgeous hand-dyed yarn from Black Cat Fibers , which I plan to use for another So Faded Sweater : R-L: Vamp, Alchemy, Dirt Nap and Quarry I don't think I've ever knit a sweater twice, but I really like how my first one turned out, and it fits me perfectly (especially now that I put a collar on it - no more Flash Dance sweater!). I still have the pattern with the numbers for my size circled, so I doubt it'll be long til I cast on....never mind that I am also currently working on a Comfort Fade cardi in some OOAK hand-dyed colors of Lhasa Wilderness . 2018 is the Year of the Sweater after all, right?! As you can see, the YarnCon marketplace was full of temptation - it took quite a bit of willpower not to bring everything home with me. Thankfully, my r...

Last weekend was one of my favorite yarny events of the season, YarnCon! I love this show because it focuses solely on independent makers, and this year's was the biggest and best yet. Vendor booths spilled out into the hallway and up into the balcony of the venue, and I think that this was the most varied and interesting collection of vendors yet. There were a lot more hand dyers this year, and all of them really brought their A games: unique yarns, gorgeous colorways, and LOTS to choose from. It was great to see so many returning vendors (Why Knot, Brew City Yarns, & Yarn Geek come to mind), but I would say that more than half were new to me, which made exploring the show floor really exciting. It really seemed like there was something for everyone, with each vendor bringing something unique to the mix. I did see a lot of the speckled yarns and gradients which are still really popular, and there were even more mini skeins for sale than I think I've ever seen at the ...

YarnCon is absolutely my favorite yarn/fiber show in the Chicagoland area, and this past weekend didn't disappoint. This year I was a full-on vendor, presiding over the Bijou Basin Ranch booth while the owners, Carl and Eileen, each had their own BBR booth at DFW in Texas and YarnFest in Colorado, respectively. Thankfully, I had help in the form of Lindy from Balwen Woodworks , who was sharing the space and handled most of the behind-the-scenes logistics. It was a great two days, and I especially enjoyed meeting people who made a point to stop by to say they followed me on Instagram and/or read my blog. It's always a surprise to me for some reason, I guess I think that once I write a post or publish a photo, it just goes out in the ether and no one bothers to look at it? Anyway, it was nice to meet some of you in person and talk about how much we love yarn. That's always a good conversation to have. Though I didn't stick to my "no buying yarn" rule, I t...

I spent the entire weekend at YarnCon here in Chicago - man, I sure could use a weekend to recover from my weekend! Tiredness aside, it was totally worth making the trip down to the West Loop three days in a row (I helped out on set-up day last Friday and all weekend long in the Bijou Basin Ranch booth). I met some folks I've previously only known via Instagram or Ravelry (i.e. one of the most recent Take 5 bloggers, Lucia Pane ), saw many knitting friends, and came home with some awesome goodies. This year's event was even bigger than last year - the entire marketplace was full of every imaginable yarn and fiber, not to mention the project bags and other related accessories. On Saturday, I came home with a mondo skein (as in, 600+ yards) of BFL sock yarn from Leading Men Fiber Arts : Some gorgeous spinning fiber from Yarn Hollow and CJ Koho (the concept behind this is really cool, so I'll be sure to talk about that more in a future post): And these awesome bu...

Last weekend, I finished the self-striping OMG Heel socks which I started near the end of March. They would have been done much quicker if I hadn't gotten distracted by gnomes and lots of other projects, of course, but that's just how things go around here! I love how they turned out, and as luck would have it, the self-striping pattern even matches up pretty well. The yarn is hand-dyed by me on the Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock base, which is a superwash merino/nylon sock yarn. I made it many years ago when I still worked there, as evinced by the 225-yard skeins (they've since changed the put-up to be around 440 yards per skein, I believe). I made the smallest size of the OMG heel socks, which means that some lucky kiddo in my life will be getting a new pair of socks at some point! I had plenty of yarn left over, too - I didn't even touch the second skein! If you follow me on Instagram, you might want to check your feed, because I plan on giving the left...

The Countdown to YarnCon Gnome Gnitalong is in full swing here on Ravelry ! Now that I have finished both of my secret knitting projects which are due this month, I am free to break out the DPNs and have myself a Gnome Party! I am using leftover bits of worsted weight yarn and my new favorite DPNs from Knitter's Pride, Marblz, to knit slightly-less-tiny versions of Anna Hrachovec's Tiny Gnome pattern. My goal is to make a gnome rainbow to send to Seoul, and they are so fast to knit that I'm already off to a good start. If you want to join in the fun, the Tiny Gnome pattern is available in a few places: Anna's book, Teeny Tiny MochiMochi ; the Tiny Gnome Kit ; and the Tiny Things Collection 3 which you can purchase for $3 off the regular price now through April 15, 2015 - just enter  GNOMEDIPLOMACY at checkout. I'm really excited to contribute a few gnomes to this project, and I can't wait to see how it turns out. Plus, I'll be entered into a prize ...

Living in Chicago, I am quite spoiled for awesome fiber-related events in my neck of the woods. However, YarnCon is hand-down my fave: it kicks off the fiber show season every April and attracts some really amazing indie dyers and makers. I'm thrilled to help spread the word about an exciting KAL called Project Gnome Diplomacy , which is a gnometastic partnership with the folks who put on YarnCon & Anna Hrachovec of Mochimochi Land ! I can't think of a better way to count down the days til YarnCon (which takes place on April 18-19, 2015) than by helping Anna collect all of the tiny gnomes she'll need to complete her upcoming art installation is Seoul, South Korea. Here are the details: Mochimochi Land is going to Korea in May, and we want YOUR tiny gnomes to be our ambassadors! In the spirit of craft and community, these gnomes will be unique creations gathered together in a delightfully diverse group of beards and hats for the public to see and be i...

This weekend was my favorite fiber show of the year: YarnCon ! I went with my friend Lauren (it also happened to be her birthday) and enjoyed checking out the many varied vendors. There were several returning favorites such as Fleur de Fiber , Cloudlover, Yarn Hollow , and Yarn Geek Fiber, plus some new faces, too. YarnCon is always a well-curated affair, and besides having a fantastic range of vendors, they also have lots of interesting classes and other events happening, too. Cloudlover BFL Roving I think this is the first time Cooperative Press has had a booth at the show, and I also discovered a brand-new magazine called Chicago Knits - I bought the first issue and will be sure to share my thoughts with you once I'm done reading it! Somehow I managed not to take any photos while shopping the marketplace - oops! I was apparently focused on the task at hand: increasing my fiber stash as much as possible. I came home with two pounds of fiber from two of the three vendo...

I'm sure no one but me is noticing the lateness of this post, but it's just been that kind of week! I very nearly skipped today's post entirely, but in the end I decided to stay the course and try to keep up with my self-imposed blog schedule. I haven't accomplished much on my Cute Girl top for the #HKKAL, but I did manage to knit past the halfway point on Tyler's never-ending scarf of doom ! Look at how long (not to mention linty) it has become since I last posted a photo ! Over the weekend, I was inspired to try a little DIY fiber dyeing (using the 99-cent Paas easter egg color kit)! I'd been saving this naked Polwarth roving I picked up at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool festival last fall for just the right time, and with the upcoming Spring Training spin-a-thon beginning next week, it seems like there's not time like the present! I'm thinking I want to hand-card it into rolags so that it makes a more consistently heathered yarn (plus it fu...

This weekend, my pal Lauren and I went to YarnCon , Chicago's independent fiber festival that features several local and regional indie dyers, spinners, and other fiber-related folks. This year, they are kicking off the fiber festival season (at least for me), rather than waiting til the fall - a clever move, since there are already many fibery events in the region from August-October (Stitches, Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival, Michigan Fiber Festival and VK Live all come to mind). Their new venue in the west loop is a little roomier, too, boasting plenty of parking; another exciting development for this year's show was moving to a two-day format! I had a small budget which I managed to stick to, amazingly enough. There were many temptations, of course, but in the end I made just a few purchases: a skein of Seda Sock from the Grinning Gargoyle booth (in Signature Red to coordinate with the Espresso Seda Sock yarn I purchased at VK Live last fall), some hand-dyed organi...

Swimming in candy. Since Mr. Nubbins didn't get to go to Renegade or Stitches this year, I thought I should finally humor him and let him hitch a ride to YarnCon in my Wool Dispensary project bag.  Mr. Nubbins made a lot of friends on Saturday - he even spent some time hanging out in the candy bowl at the Windy City Knitting Guild table.  I managed to catch him before he ate all of the lollipops, fortunately. Sam is the yarn dyer! (Side note: I joined the WCKG at the beginning of the year but have yet to make it to a meeting - something always gets in the way!  Before it used to be work or a show, now it's stupid things like me forgetting because I was on a bus that got hit by a car - which actually happened last Tuesday!  The funny thing about that was, I was marooned fairly close to where the meeting was taking place, but because of my extreme annoyance at the situation, all thoughts of the meeting went out of my head as I concentrated on my Plan B for Ge...