handmade by stefanie

After a chilly week here in Chicago, today's FO project seems more than appropriate: a polar bear! I was hoping to be able to photograph him in some actual snow, but it seems like other parts of the country are getting ALL OF THE SNOW while Chicago is merely being teased with flurries. Therefore, I took matters into my own hands and used some natural-colored spinning fiber (Louet's Jacob sliver, to be exact) to manufacture a wintry scene of my own! I used the Hot Chocolate Run Polar Bear pattern from WEBS; all proceeds from the sale of this pattern benefit Safe Passage , and last month they hosted a KAL  which shares some handy tips for knitting and assembling your bear. The pattern calls for bulky weight yarn, but I opted to make a smaller version with Valley Yarns Stockbridge yarn as the MC and some leftover stash yarn for the contrasting colors. Isn't he adorable? In other news: it's last call for 25% off   my eligible patterns  for  this ...

It's that time of year when I can't share all of my WIPs publicly - thank goodness I have two KALs I'm participating in to keep things interesting! Over the weekend, I finished the knitting portion for my Polar Hat, which is part of the Bulky Knit Hats KAL : As you can see, I have no cut out many pieces of fringe (over 100!) which are to be affixed to the brim of the hat, and I've also made a ginormous pom pom which will grace the top of said hat! This might be a project I save for this coming weekend; I kind of like to do tasks such as this all in one sitting, which I know isn't possible during the work week. My other project is for the WEBS' Snow Family KAL, which I am not doing a great job of keeping up with, truth be told! You can click here to read about Week 3 on the WEBS blog ; so far, all I have finished is one small tree and the body of a Snow Person (with half of a hat in progress): Also, the window for snagging patterns for 25% off clo...

Last weekend, I finished this adorable Flamingo from the FreshStitches Kit Club! Isn't he cute? You'd never know that winter has arrived here in Chicago - I managed to find the one part of our back yarn that hasn't yet died for the season! I also finally found a frame for my Excelsior , which was my TSOLKAL project. Now it's hanging in my craft room, where it coordinates with the curtains almost perfectly. I think it needs a few friends, but that will have to wait til I'm done with my holiday gift-making, of course. Speaking of holiday gift-making....the Indie Design Gift-along is here! Click here for all the details over on Ravelry, but in a nutshell, the GAL (as it's commonly referred to) is a great way to support indie designers while also saving money on your pattern purchase and having opportunities to win some amazing prizes ! Participating designers will be offering selected designs for 25% off with the coupon code GIFTALONG2014 . Look f...

Robin is one tough kidney cat! Today is the three year anniversary of Robin's diagnosis of Chronic Renal Failure, so I wanted to do a little something different than my usual FO Friday post to celebrate how we'll he's being doing since we stabilized him after his last crash. I'd been puzzling on what that might be for a while, but hadn't come up with anything that seemed quite right. Then, I wandered into the Lucky Cat Crafts booth at SOAR and started talking to Kim, the owner. We talked about yarn, fiber, and cats, although at the time, it didn't occur to me to ask if she wanted to be featured on my blog, much less sponsor an awesome giveaway AND provide my readers with a special discount code towards anything in the Lucky Cat Craft Etsy Shop . After returning home, I emailed Kim and pretty much suggested all of the above to Kim and, clearly, she said yes! Turns out, she has a kitty of her own who has a seizure disorder - so we both have the common bo...

After making the decision to put my Destash Dolman to sleep for a bit, I comforted myself by casting on for two new knitting projects. The first is a pair of gloves for Tyler, whose current gloves keep springing holes (they were, after all, knit in 2008 ). The new gloves will look an awful lot like the old ones, being that they're his favorite color (or not-color, if you prefer), black. I am, however, using a different yarn entirely - this time, a 100% BFL worsted-weight yarn that I purchased at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival last fall. It's a huge skein, so gloves are just the beginning! As you can see, I've accomplished a lot in just a few days' time - I'm already on the second glove! I'm using Marly Bird's 5 in 1 Adventure pattern, which is a part of her excellent Mittens and Glove Galore class on Craftsy , in which I am enrolled, so be looking for my full review here on this blog soon. In the mean time, if you can't wait to hear my t...