handmade by stefanie

I had a very productive holiday weekend! Not only did I start my crocheted Spikey the Stegosaurus for the Spud & Chloë/FreshStitches CAL .... ...I also made some progress on the chevron yak socks which have admittedly taken the backburner these last couple of weeks - I'm just about ready to start the first round of gusset shaping! I indulged a bit of startitis and started a Little Luchador from 50 Yards of Fun - it's a gift for Tyler's boss, who helped me secure a day off in secret for my birthday gift to Tyler (I bought him tickets to the Beer Camp tour that'll be visiting Chicago later this month!). Finally, I have been spinning up a storm for #TeamSasquatch for the Tour de Fleece! Days 1-3 were spent spinning two BFL singles: on the left is some green, gold and grey BFL from Yarnhollow and on the right is some green and brown BFL from Anzula. I'd been intending to ply them together from the start, but then I started to second-guess...

My knitting guru's birthday was last Friday, and I wanted to think of something fun yet useful that I could make her. After combing Ravelry and my bookshelves for ideas, I finally decided that the Turtle Lunch Tote from Amigurumi on the Go would make an excellent project bag! It was actually kind of hard to give this one away, I may have to make one for myself someday soon. You can purchase this awesome book via Craftsy Deals by clicking my affiliate link! I got a few goodies in the mail this week - first, I placed an order with HaldeCraft because I wanted to try the lavender hand lotion before it was discontinued...naturally, some lip balm  (which is also being discontinued) found its way into my shopping cart, and Lorena very kindly included a bar of Lavender soap that smells absolutely heavenly. I don't usually order lavender anything  online without already being familiar with the product line and how it smells, because there is good lavender and very, very b...

I wanted to take a few weeks before revisiting the two Fresh Designs Series books I have yet to review ( Fresh Designs: Sweaters and Fresh Designs: Men). For those of you who missed last month's review of Fresh Designs: Scarves and Fresh Designs: Shawls, you can click here to get up to speed. There are also a lot of general notes about the book series as a whole, which I'll summarize in the following bullet points before we move on to the task at hand: Graphics: A clean, modern aesthetic. Patterns are clearly written and laid out in a way that's easy to follow and include well-shot photos of each design. Bonus points for non-conventional models! Stitch patterns are written out and charted when necessary. Charts are readable and easy-to-follow (only one lace design has an unavoidably small chart) Patterns have all the information you need right there - no rifling through the book to find the symbol or abbreviation key.  Each garment has at least 4 size options, som...

I should probably start by saying that I have a design coming out in the upcoming Fresh Designs: Toys book, and I'm a huge fan of Cooperative Press and Shannon Okey. Through the Cooperative Press , Shannon has managed to publish some of the most interesting titles in the yarn industry. California Revival Knits , Extreme Double-Knitting , and now the Fresh Designs series readily spring to mind as shining examples! I volunteered myself to review the books that recently came out because I'm really excited about this series (currently out are Scarves , Shawls , Sweaters and Men ) and jumped at the opportunity to help promote my fellow Fresh Designs designers. All of the books in this series share a clean, modern graphic aesthetic. Patterns are clearly-written and laid out in a way that's easy to follow. The images of the patterns are directly followed by the pattern, which is something I appreciate (I hate having to search through a PDF document when all the photos ar...