handmade by stefanie

Last night, I actually went out instead of doing my usual Friday night (or any  night) routine of knitting and Netflixing. My favorite LYS, Windy Knitty , was previewing their fall yarns (The Fibre Company, Rowan, Noro, Titus, etc.) and the Knitter's Pride line, including the new Nova Cubics, Bamboo and Karbonz. I took the fancy camera and everyone was a good sport about me taking photos. Since I'm usually working in the vacuum of my home office, it was really awesome to be a fly on the wall and hear everyone talk about what needles and yarns they preferred. Sometimes, the conversation is a lot different than the one that takes place online, since the anonymity of the interwebs often begets a higher incidence of complaining. I'm speaking in generalities, of course - and it's true that most people don't go out of their way to share positive feedback, both online in real life (revenge-seeking Yelp-ers, I'm thinking of you!). For the most part, the fiber communi...

Happy WIP Wednesday! Thanks for joining me this week; I only have a few projects that I can share on this blog (the rest are top secret!). I was really hoping I'd be finished with my Emmanuelle sweater sleeves for this week's WIP Wednesday blog post, but I feel just short of my goal: On the plus side, I made a decent amount of progress on my Mountain Moss Shawl since last week: Over the weekend, I started a Panda Puppet from Itty Bitty Toys when I realized I hadn't made any projects using books from my library since June. It's also a destash project, which is another goal of mine for 2013. So far I just have the first half of the puppet body finished: Thanks for joining me this week! For more WIP Wednesday inspiration, visit the  Tami's Amis Blog !

Happy WIP Wednesday! I have a few knitting projects to share this week, plus a progress report on my latest Spin-O-Lution efforts. First, my Elfe sweater is coming along nicely! Over the weekend I tried it on and decided to do a few more increases for the sleeves before binding off those stitches. Now that I have a bit of length from the armholes, I may have to try it on again just to make sure I made the right call. I finally started working on my second Fleece Artist sock - I'm not too far along, since I keep getting distracted by gift knitting/crocheting and my Elfe-in-progress, but hopefully I can get this second sock finished by the end of May so that the new pattern can come out mid-summer. That is the new goal, anyway! So what do I do when I have a self-imposed deadline? Cast on for a new hat , of course! My husband bought me some Knitter's Pride Karbonz needles for Christmas and I have been dying to knit with them. I have no idea why it took me five mont...

Santa was very good to me this year, and not just in the realm of knitterly gifts. My destash efforts will be much easier with the bevvy of new books that were under my Christmas tree: Coastal Knits , Mostly Mittens , November Knits , Colorwork Creations , Cast On Bind Off , and Alice Starmore's Charts for Color Knitting . I also got a pretty new fabric case for my interchangeable needles (plus one of the tips sizes I was lacking) and some Karbonz circulars, which I'm excited to try with the metal tips - I have a pair of  the original DPNs without the tips, so I'm interested to compare them. I think I'm finally gotten back into the swing of things upon our return to Chicago - working, knitting, spinning, etc. I've finished a few projects over this past weekend that I'll be sharing on this blog just as soon as I can get them photographed; I also have one more round of Secret Knitting that I'll be posting later this week. See you on WIP Wednesday!

Warning: there is a WestKnits Mystery KAL spoiler photo in this post!!  Startitis has hit me hard this summer. I know a lot of people quit knitting once the thermometer starts to rise, but I'm just the opposite: I grab a beer and some yarn so I can hide in the air conditioning til cooler temperatures prevail. My line of work is perennially enabling my yarn-buying, pattern-queueing, casting-on habit, and right now it seems to keep getting worse as the summer progresses...not that I'm complaining.  Far from it! Last month, I indulged in some retail therapy by purchasing enough Canopy Fingering to make a Color Affection shawl. I've been making regular (yet slow) progress, but am nearly done with the short row section: The short rows are getting longer! I'm using   Manatee ,   Conifer   and   Sarsparilla ...my three favorite colors! I can't wait for this shawl to be done - I'm already envisioning myself wrapping up in it all winter long. My WestKn...