handmade by stefanie

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...

My recent guest post on the Woolery blog ( click here if you missed it! ) was all I needed to get excited about spinning again, apparently. Last weekend, I finished the spinning project which I had started in April: some very vibrant dyed BFL top which I had actually purchased from the Woolery earlier this year (the colorway is called Poppies in Oz, which is pretty fitting!). If you are familiar with spinning BFL, you will be a little surprised with this fiber because it's not quite as silky as most commercially-available BFL tops. Instead, it feels quite sturdy, and that's because this particular fiber comes from New Zealand Blue-Faced Leicester sheep, whose fleece clocks in at the higher end of the micron count (remember, the lower the number, the softer the fiber!). Just because it's not silky-soft doesn't mean this fiber doesn't have a place in your spinning or knitting routine - in fact, I have big plans for the resulting skein of handspun, but I'm g...

The chevron socks of DOOM are finally getting closer to being done, thanks to an 18-hour roadtrip earlier this month. Basically, I forced myself to work on this project as much as I could while en route to Kansas City, where we visited family and celebrated our 9-year (!) wedding anniversary. We ended up bringing home some beertastic souvenirs, of course! Over the weekend, I finally grafted the second sock together and began the arduous task of knitting the cuffs and toes. I apologize for the all caps, but.....I AM NOW TWO TOES AWAY FROM HAVING THIS PROJECT OFF THE NEEDLES!  Needless to say, I am really looking forward to this project being done. I know I will love the socks once they're done - the yarn is incredible and they will be super-duper warm, too. However, knitting socks sideways is definitely not for me. I can't stress this enough. I have been working on them since the beginning of May, so it will be a huge relief to go into August with a clean slate.  ...

First, I'm super-excited about finishing what I've lovingly dubbed the never-ending spinning project . Last month, for Spinning Spring Training, I began spinning a pound of lovely Dorper fiber from Louet. Turns out, a pound is an awful lot of fiber (duh!) and I didn't finish spinning my singles til the beginning of this month....and then the plying began! At long last, I have my finished skeins. They are chain plied to match some dorper I'd spun last fall for Spinzilla, and the total yardage is 484 yards. I know, right - a month an a half to make just shy of 500 yards of yarn? That is pretty insane, but chain plying give you 1/3 of your total yardage spun in singles, so if I want to feel better about myself, I really spun 1,452 yards of yarn in that time. In other news, I picked up several samples of spinning fibers at TNNA, and I thought it would be fun to split each sample in half to spin up in two different ways: first, directly from the roving without any prep...