handmade by stefanie

Last weekend, Tyler and I took a little road trip to Minneapolis for what was essentially a craft beer tour of the city. So! Much! Beer! I'm certainly not complaining, as it was all quite fantastic, but wow! I think we were both surprised by just how awesome the craft beer scene is in the Twin Cities. If you follow me on instagram, you may have seen some of these photos, but I have tried to find some additional pictures which I haven't posted yet to mix things up. I suppose I should start with the beer since there wasn't quite as much knitting that took place on vacation as I would have liked (but as you will see, there was some here and there!). Surly Beer  was the overwhelming theme of the trip - it was everywhere, and it was delicious! We found a really good place called  Nighthawks Diner  near our AirBnB which ended up being brand new (as in, it had just opened the week we arrived!), and they had a lot of great beers on tap. We even spent our last day at the ...

Ever since I pledged my first project on Kickstarter to help The Wool Dispensary get started, I've been hungry to find and fund more interesting projects via the site. Late last year, my band successfully raised funds to release the first two 7" vinyl singles in a 4-single series, so I know how hard people have to work to meet their funding goals - it's definitely not easy! Last year, I funded a project by my poster-making friends Nick and Nadine of Sonnenzimmer  to help them create and print a book of their work. It just arrived in the mail at the beginning of this month; it's so exciting to physically hold the finished product in your hands and know that you played a small part in that object becoming a reality. Last year, I also funded a local brewing start-up (which culminated in a beertastic brewery tour right before Christmas), a graphic novel called the Intrepid Girlbot , and a gorgeous quarterly magazine for crafty folk by Susan Gibbs and Jeannie Bloch c...

Today I'm back in Chicago after spending a long weekend with my husband and our families in Kansas City. We both needed a trip out of town that wasn't for business (or a family emergency). This mini-vacation was laid-back, filled with food, family, friends, knitting, and most importantly....BEER! Early on in the trip, I finished my Indigo Swan Cowl . It proved to be the perfect train knitting project - an easy-to-memorize pattern that I could absentmindedly knit no matter how tired I got. I used up pretty much all of the skein, too - after binding off, there were only a few yards left. the first day we were in town was my Dad's sixtieth birthday, so my mom and I treated him to lunch at Beer Kitchen. Our server brought him some drunken donuts for dessert and he was a pretty happy guy! We stayed with Tyler's parents downtown and took some time one morning to explore the historic graveyard that their balcony overlooks. I lived in Kansas City til I was 23 and neve...

I've been remiss in posting about Renegade Craft Fair last weekend.  All of the car nonsense kind of distracted me last week - but it's time to return to my regularly scheduled blogging. I'm sure it's no surprise to learn that I had a modest budget for Renegade this year, but I think I made my dollars count.  As always, there were lots of cool things I'd like to have purchased - lovely-smelling soaps, nifty ceramics, and some really cool terrariums (there were two vendors of terrariums this year - and very few items with birds on them, now that I think of it.  Way to go, Portlandia !).  Everything I purchased fit perfectly in this wee canvas tote bag, which I bought from Alysson at The Sweatshop of Love .  Her mom hand-stamps them, and it's absolutely perfect for taking a sock project on-the-go....which brings us to item #2:  my annual Rhino Fluff purchase! Last year, you may recall the amazing blue skein of silky sock yarn I purchased from Rhino...

...when you don't have any heat because the repairman broke the heater when he came over to 'fix' it, and the actual part they need is on backorder til friday (and that's presupposing he knows what to do with said part)! 1.  make a pot of hot tea, drink while wrapping gifts.  be filled with the spirit of the holidays!  and caffeine.  2.  listen to some good music.  this is my 'listening pile,' filled with records i got for my birthday, and a few i picked up on impulse the last time i was at reckless .  3.  find a sun puddle to warm you up.  this one appears to be at capacity, however.  4.  make some tiny snowmen!  pattern:  teeny-tiny mochimochi snowmen pattern yarn:  pick up sticks small balls 5.  carbo-load.  you'll need the extra insulation, and beer makes everything better.  5.  snuggle a cat and bust out the hand-knits.  i'm wearing my honey cowl , my...

i found myself baking some gingerbread cookies the other day, and was excited to use the new cookie cutters i'd just bought, when i realized i didn't have a rolling pin.  i know i used to have one, but somewhere along the way it disappeared, or maybe it was sold at a garage sale.  the point is, i had a bunch of cookie dough and a preheated oven that was ready to go, and no rolling pin in sight! i know a normal person would just get in the car and go buy one. but i'm not normal (in case this is your first time reading this blog), and i don't own a car, and on top of that, i just didn't feel like going back out into the world that day.  so i did what any non-normal person in my predicament would do:  i improvised. in case there's anyone else out there who can't justify the expense of a rolling pin to make a few batches of cookies once a year, here's a tutorial on making your own rolling pin.  just like macgyver would do.  1.  Get a large (750mL) be...