handmade by stefanie

Fun fact: my husband and I are almost exactly 6 months apart in age (my half birthday is the day before his actual birthday later this month). I thought it would be fun to celebrate both with a little sale on Ravelry and Etsy! Ravelry Pattern Sale Enter HALFBDAY at checkout to get 50% off all of my patterns on Ravelry - including the Conversation Socks ebook! - now through May 18. Click here to visit my Ravelry pattern store! Etsy Shop Sale On Etsy, you can choose your discount below, good towards any of my current listings for mini skeins, hand dyed yarns, and handspun yarns. Plus, all US orders (still) ship FREE! Spend $10, get 10% off when you enter SPEND10 at checkout. Spend $20, get 20% off when you enter SPEND20 at checkout. Spend $30, get 30% off when you enter SPEND30 at checkout. All offers expire at Midnight MDT on Friday, May 18. Click here to visit my Etsy Shop!

I finished another handspun scarf, and I think I'll have to keep this one for myself because I absolutely LOVE how it turned out! I used some commerically-made black yarn for the warp (I lost the label, it's leftover from some  project!), and then the weft is a 3-ply handspun yarn that I spun from 8oz of hand-dyed BFL fiber from Nerd Girl Yarns in the #hashtag colorway. Here's where I love the archive that both Ravelry and blogging provide: I would have never guessed that this yarn dates back to July 2014 ! Also, you can read more about the structure of this yarn here - it's an opposing ply, which is a little different than what I usually spin when making a 3-ply. There's quite a bit of yarn left over, and I'm wondering if I have enough to make another scarf. But for now, I've put on a warp for another new project, which was going to be another funky destash scarf, but then I realized that the yarns from my other recent weaving projects all l...

Not long after I finished the Cozy Memories blanket , I had the (possibly insane) idea to try crocheting a blanket with all of my leftover of handspun yarn . Perhaps my reasoning was that crocheting was faster, so certainly I would finish this blanket faster than the last one, which took one and a half years to complete. If that's the case, I was right on the money, because I started this on July 31 of last year, and it was completely done and blocking by the end of June! I used a large crochet hook (size N, or 9mm) and just alternated single crochet and double crochet as I pleased while using whatever random bits of handspun yarn happened to be nearby. The crocheting part was finished by the end of April, but I spent most of May procrastinating weaving in all of the ends. Finally, I decided that if I took it on our road trip to Kansas City last month, I would probably weave in all those fiddly ends out of boredom - another notion that ended up paying off. I always ha...

Between launching a  new free hat pattern  and celebrating Tyler's birthday (which was on Wednesday), it's been a rather busy week. Also, I totally forgot to share my first guest post from the Interweave blog that went live  last  Friday -  click here to check it out ! Anyway, in the midst of everything, I managed to squeeze in a quick photo shoot for this fun cowl that I recently knit with some of my handspun yarn : I can't seem to find any record as to what this fiber is, or where I purchased it, since it was spun for a Tour de Fleece long before I stated to keep better records in my spinning notebook. BUT, I can at least tell you what pattern I used: the  Aspen Cowl by Andi Javori  (note: affiliate link). This was a fairly easy knitting project, and it was fast, too - I just love patterns like that! . The stitch repeats were easy to "read" as I worked, so a lot of mistakes I would normally make were easily avoided just by taking a ...

I'm working on a sample for Bijou Basin Ranch right now, and it needs to be done by the end of this month - so I am practicing a little project monogamy for now. The yarn is a really pretty hand-dyed color of Lhasa Wilderness, and I'm using 2 skeins to knit the Culebra Simple Shawlette : The lace border was definitely a pay-attention stitch pattern, but now that I am about to start the short row shaping and garter stitch, I think I'll be able to relax a little. It's a fun knit so far, and coming along pretty quickly, too. My on-the-go-project has been the second light saber green sock, and I am getting close to the finish line - I just turned the heel! I've also been working some more on my handspun crocheted blanket: That's it for this week! I'm hoping to have an FO Friday project to share this week, but I'm not 100% certain that's going to be a thing....to be continued!

I am just a million ends and a few buttons away from having 2 finished baby sweaters ! How did that happen?! I've been able to avoid starting new projects because I am awaiting some yarn that is being held hostage by USPS currently - boo - which is pretty annoying, since it's for a sample that I need to finish by the end of this month. Ah, the Chicago postal service. They seem to have sixth sense for these things. Anyway, in the interim, I'm just trying to focus on finishing the projects that I have on the needles so that there is less distraction once the yarn finally shows up. To that end, I've been working more on the lightsaber-green socks : And also picked this hat project back up which I started about a week and a half ago and then promptly ignored: I'm still pretty enamoured with the handspun crocheted blanket , too - I think it's grown about an inch or so since last week: That's it for this week! I have another quick FO project to share...

Yesterday, the Tour de Fleece came to an end, and I was so close  to spinning all of the fiber that I'd earmarked for the event ! I probably could have gotten through the remaining 4oz of Organic Polwarth, but since the point of this event wasn't how much yardage I could spin, I opted not to take it easy and just spend Sunday spinning the 4 singles I had complete by the end of the previous day. I was also a total lame duck about posting in the Ravelry group thread for the team I "joined" during the event (linked at right, the Corner of Knit & Tea). Oops! Anyway,  I spent most of the final week working on a half-pound of dyed merino from Louet to create these two lovely skeins: On Saturday, I split the first braid of Leading Men Fiber Arts Organic Polwarth into half by weight and spun two singles which I plied together: I think I'll work on that second lonely braid of LMFA Organic Polwarth this week since it looks so nice with its counterpart. And here is...

As noted on Wednesday's post, I've been having some issues with my left arm and have had to take a break from knitting (this week's posts have mostly been stumble typed with just my right hand). Thankfully, I am still able to spin without pain, and I've completed both of these projects since last Thursday. First, I spun the braid of Merino/Bamboo I bought from October House at Ply Away last month. I did a fractal single which I then chain plied, and I don't know that I would chain ply another Merino/Bamboo single again. The resulting yarn is a little funky in places, and some of the fuzz would collect in a pill as I plied, which was a little annoying. This would have been much better suited to a two-ply - but live and learn, I guess! Next, I tackled the three beautiful striped batts I bought from Essential Fiber at YarnCon, which was also last month. Opening the first batt was pretty exciting, it was like it went on for days! Each batt is a mix of fibe...

I've spent a lot of time spinning and knitting this week (at least it seems that way), yet I only have a few totally finished skeins to share here on my blog. How is that possible?! Well, the incorrect replacement part for my broken wheel has now been shipped to me twice. TWICE. I don't want to name names, because the company I ordered it from has been sufficiently apologetic both times, and I think they might even expedite shipment this time for my trouble. Alas, my Museum Grudge Match spinning project is still very much in limbo, but as I said before - at least I have a backup wheel! On the plus side, I was able to finish the Organic Polwarth from  Classy Squid Fiber Co. which I started after The Unfortunate Incident occurred. I plied both singles together last Friday afternoon and the resulting skein is SO soft! The resulting skein is approximately 215 yards of 2-ply sport weight. Over the weekend, I spun 8oz of superwash merino/nylon from Cloudlover  in the Quick...

Just in time for Stitches Midwest, my handspun hippo is complete! Last night I put everything together mostly  without incident, except for the part where I sewed the ears onto the snout instead of the back of the head...and cut the yarn ends before I noticed the mistake. DOH! Luckily, I was able to safely remove the ears and sew them back on in the proper place. I used Susan B. Anderson's  Hippo  pattern from  Itty Bitty Toys   and some of my  handspun yarn  which was the equivalent to worsted weight, so I didn't have to double my yarn. I still used the needles called for in the pattern (US #5) to produce a nice, close-knit fabric, and my finished hippo is just over 9" tall when sitting. He sits up all on his own and is super cute - I can't wait to take him to the Yarn Geek Fibers booth at Stitches this weekend so they can see what I made with the BFL fiber I bought from them at YarnCon this past April! Here are the cliff's notes...

The Tour de Fleece came to an end on Sunday! I managed to spin through a ton of my fiber stash and spun pretty much every day the tour rode (and even on one of the rest days), which were basically my only goals for this year's event. I spun on Team Sasquatch and here is all of my finished yarn from the entire tour: I spun a total of 1,103 yards (2,315 yards if we're counting each ply's yardage separately)! Not bad for trying to take it easy during the event. Since I've been spinning so much yarn lately, my handspun bins are quite literally overflowing, so I decided to start some fun new projects with handspun yarns this week! First, I used one of my TDF yarns (spun from a crazy batt ) to cast on for a Small Squirrel from 50 Yards of Fun (my latest book obsession): Then, I got inspired to cast on for a squishy hippo using another book from my knitting library, Itty Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson: I'm using a pre-TDF skein of handspun; the fiber ...

Over the holiday weekend, I finished my handspun kerchief-turned shawl ! I still have a few yards left over after binding off, as I wasn't up for playing yarn chicken. The end result is an extremely soft, squishy triangle scarf that will undoubtedly keep me warm all winter long. I used the recipe from Joelle Hoverson's Last-Minute Knitted Gifts , which is a great source of knitting inspiration, especially when it comes to finding the perfect pattern for handspun yarn. I absolutely love all of the colors and the texture: Garter is fast becoming one of my favorite stitches! This week, I also finished my Stegosaurus for the FreshStitches/Spud & Chloë CAL : I have enough yarn left over to make an inverse version of the dino, too, so that will be a fun project to revisit later this month! Incidentally, it's not too late to join in on this CAL - there are prizes you can win just for finishing before the end of the month! Also, on Wednesday night I fi...

As I prepare for the Tour de Fleece (which starts this Saturday, eek!), I'm focusing on clearing out my bobbins and figuring out which fibers I want to use from my stash, which got me thinking about what to do with leftover singles. After a while, most handspinners have a lot of leftover bits and bobs of single-ply yarn leftover from past projects, and I have made it my mission to find ways to give them new life so they don't have to sit on storage bobbin for eternity. If you've been saving those singles (or just want to find some creative uses for the next time you have leftover handspun), here are three of my favorite ways to put those singles to good use! 1. Practice a new technique: there are a lot of techniques you can test out which might be less intimidating on the smaller scale of a leftover single - chain plying, felted singles, or experimenting with unbalanced plies all come to mind. Not only that, but using leftover yarn that otherwise would have collected du...

A few months ago at TNNA, I had the pleasure of chatting with the folks from Abuelita Yarns , a yarn company located in Uruguay. They have a lovely range of hand-dyed 100% merino and merino-blend yarns, and I was attracted to their booth by the beautiful braids of merino they had on display. They kindly allowed me to take a few home to spin up and write about on my blog. Something I discovered by visiting their website is their commitment to use fiber from happy sheep -by this I mean healthy, well-cared for sheep. Abuelita has even obtained a  certificate of non-mulesing , a hotly disputed practice which will turn up some pretty grotesque descriptions and photos if you choose to google it. They also pledge to protect the environment in Uruguay through various conservation efforts which you can read about in greater detail   here on their website . Sustainability and social responsibility is something that is important to many of us in the fiber community, so I hope that th...