handmade by stefanie

I confess, weaving in the ends on a finished project is one of those tasks I tend to procrastinate. It seems like I have to get in the exact right mood, and to do so, I need to spend about a week psyching myself up for a session of finishing work. What's strange is that I kind of enjoy it....once I finally get started, that is! So why do I always put it off the next time I have a project with a lot of ends to weave in?! I really don't know!  At any rate, I have totally finished and blocked my Faux Fair Isle Mittens , which were a class project from Marly Bird's excellent Mittens & Gloves Galore Craftsy class ( click here for my review and 50% off your class signup!). I absolutely LOVE how these turned out!  I ended up stash-diving to use a skein of Lorna's Laces sock yarn I'd custom dyed as the main color (the top and bottom skein pictured above), then various leftover bits of sock yarn to simulate the long color repeats of the yarn that was...

Last weekend, I put the finishing touches on my Thrummed Mittens , then gave them a nice blocking in Wrapture  (I could still smell the lingering jasmine during this photo shoot)! As luck would have it, my husband got a very fancy digital camera as an early birthday present from his parents, and he took some really great photos of my finished mittens...a process I apparently didn't enjoy. Consequently, he's now going to be doing a LOT more photos for my patterns and blog posts! I mean, it's night and day, the difference between these photos and the photos I've been using from our much-older digital camera (or my cell phone...or instagram...). You can get all the details on the yarn and fiber used in this project on my Ravelry project page . I used to pattern and video instructions from Marly Bird's excellent Craftsy class, Mittens and Gloves Galore ( click here for a full review and a special discounted link for my blog readers)! I am so excited to bu...

I find myself without an FO this week, unless you count the following: my first finished sock of 2013 and my Breezy Bolero from last week, now complete with buttons! Consequently, this will be a short post today. It's been a while since I've shared my sock progress, but these have been taking the backburner to other projects in the last few weeks. They are my own design, which will hopefully be out later this summer. I am loving the yarn, Fleece Artist's Nova Sock . I'm also glad to finally have a photo of me wearing my newest finished sweater! The buttons were gifted to me by my pal Lauren, who probably has a button stash that puts mine to shame....and mine is pretty extensive. I believe she'll be selling some of these lovelies on etsy sometime soon. Of course I'll keep you posted! I would have had a finished Genmaicha hat to share with everyone, but I had a small incident with a stretchy bind-off gone awry; this weekend, I'll try again and h...

I'm still chugging away at my thrummed mittens , though over the weekend I started running perilously low on thrums. I probably should have seen that coming, but at least I have plenty of fiber to make more thrums....I just hope that I can get two mittens' worth out of them, since the first mitten is probably going to take over 200 thrums! I started a very simple hat last week which has been my primary on-the-go project. The pattern is a free pattern from Kelbourne Woolens called the Genmaicha Hat . I have to say that the name is really what did it for me, since it's my favorite kind of tea (though I am also in love with Canopy Fingering ). I happened to have some leftover yarn from my Color Affection Shawl - a full skein of Canopy Fingering in Sarsparilla and half-skein in Conifer; I did have a brief moment of insanity where I thought I should purchase one more skein to knit the teeny-tiny stripe before the ribbing, but then I realized I had enough Malabrigo Finito in...

It's the last FO Friday of April, and I'm psyched to share my latest finished project with you, my ready-for-spring cropped cardigan ! Now that all the ends are woven in and it's been blocked, I just need to find the perfect buttons. This was a pretty quick knit (I am a historically slow sweater knitter, even for cropped cardis and such); on April 4 I cast on and ended up ripping out my work and starting again from scratch mid-month because I am OCD . I'm glad I did, because the finished product is perfect! Once I sew on some buttons, I'll have my husband take a photo of me wearing it, but for now, here's my latest FO: Pattern: Breezy Bolero by Marly Bird Yarn: Roslyn , a fingering weight cotton/cashmere blend from Bijou Basin Ranch Notes: My size called for 4 balls of yarn; but because I had to go down a needle size to get gauge, I ended up using only a tiny bit of that fourth ball! I probably have enough to make some fingerless mitts or a hat; perhaps i...

Over the weekend, I began my preparations to make the Warm in Here Thrummed Mittens from Marly Bird's Mittens & Gloves Galore class on Craftsy (you can read my full class review here ). This has been in my queue for a while now, and I have to say there have been many days I've wished for thrummed mittens, including last Friday when it was blustery and snowing here in Chicago! When I worked at Lorna's Laces , I dyed a bunch of Wooltop in various colors to use in needle felting projects...and since they never really happened, I thought this would be the perfect way to put them to good use. Plus, they happen to look pretty good with the yarn I picked out, some pretty multicolored yarn from Knit One Crochet Too . As you can see, I made a big o' pile of thrums this weekend - over 100, in fact! I hope that's enough, but I still have plenty of leftover fiber if I need to make more. Tonight I'm going to do my gauge swatch and then cast on for my first mitten....

Today's post will be a short one, because I have finished a few projects and been concentrating the rest of my crafting time on the Breezy Bolero . I actually did end up ripping the entire thing out and starting over - I don't know what compels me to do such things, to be perfectly honest. Whatever the reason, I'm glad I did because the issue I was bothered by is significantly better on this second attempt. With the progress I made over the weekend and these last few days, you probably wouldn't have known that's what I did if I hadn't just confessed, am I right? Click here to see last week's progress for comparison's sake! At any rate, last night I took off for the sleeves, and now I just have a few inches of stockinette and decreases to do before I get to the ribbing and bind off. My somewhat-unrealistic goal is to have ALL of the knitting completed by the end of this coming weekend. I suppose anything is possible, but considering I am (usually) t...

Click here for 50% off your class registration! This review is long overdue; I was originally hoping to post it last December, but holiday gift knitting and crocheting took over all of my brain power, and it became my white whale on my blogging to-do list. Honestly, I have to thank my husband for finally getting me back in the class review swing of things - if he hadn't needed a new pair of gloves because his  current gloves  (knit in 2008, mind you) kept springing holes, I might still be procrastinating. I've taken several Craftsy classes in the last year, but I still watched the introduction, even though I feel well-versed in all of the bells and whistles the  Craftsy platform provides. It's always nice to get to know the instructor (although in this case, I've had the pleasure of getting to know Marly at trade shows and other knitting events), plus she outlines what the class will cover and shows each of the projects that will be made along the ...

I've been remiss in sharing all the details about Marly Bird 's Designer Dinner in Columbus last month! This was the first time I've gotten to attend and had been looking forward to it for quite some time. It was supposed to be a masquerade, but I just didn't have time to do something creative, so I packed my mustachio nosewarmers for the occasion. You'll see I was able to coerce someone else into going incognito via knitted mustache! There were some pretty cool masks and costumes, but I think my favorites were by Alasdair Post-Quinn's (his was, of course, double-knit & SPECTACULAR) and Gwen Bortner's (she being the entrelac queen). You can view all of the photos here on Facebook - don't forget to like Marly's fan page while you're there!  I'll spare you my opinions on the food - the vegan options were a little lacking, but that's something I've come to expect pretty much anywhere I go, especially in the midwest. It's ...