handmade by stefanie

I'm pretty excited to share my new projects this week! I feel like I'm always fighting off startitis, but so far this year I've been pretty good about finishing projects before I start new ones. Over the weekend, I finished Tyler's never-ending scarf of doom (which I'll be sharing this Friday!) and made some serious progress on my #HKKAL top , too: Once Tyler's scarf was blocking, I felt pretty good about starting not ONE but TWO new projects! First, I wanted something simple I could work on while riding the bus, so I finally cast on for a Berlin Cowl of my own since the original sample is a display piece for Baah yarn. I actually went to one of my knitting groups on Sunday afternoon, so I thought it would be fun to start a new project. I'd purchased two skeins of Terra from WEBS at the beginning of the year so that I could knit the Vorderrhein Hat from Vintage Modern Knits, and now seemed like as good of a time as any to start it! Last but not le...

I'm so excited to announce that I have a new sock pattern! The Windmill of the Autumn Sky Socks are a celebration of my favorite time of year, and I chose a nice, autumnal color from Fleece Artist (the sample is knitted in the "Rust" colorway of Nova Sock ). They feature a simple lace pattern that will keep you interested as you knit, but won't stress you out by being overly complicated. I'm all about lovely, soothing knits for fall.  The stitch pattern also lets the subtle variations of hand-dyed yarns take center stage. Plus, they make a great gift if you're starting to panic about your holiday gift-making!  The name of this pattern is kind of a mouthful, but I became obsessed with a song by Asteroid #4 and couldn't get the song title out of my mind whenever I thought about these socks! Somehow - long though it is - it just suited them perfectly, and the name stuck. Plus, the lace pattern kind of looks like windmills! Unfortunately, t...

Before I left on my surprise trip to Kansas City last weekend, I whipped up a few quick hats with my handspun yarn. The bin is overflowing, and with Spinzilla just over a week away, I've got to make some room for all of the new yarns I'll be spinning during the event! The darker hat is some pretty merino fiber I purchased at The Yarn Barn of Kansas and spun into a bulky weight 2-ply; it's a charcoal grey with bright pops of fiber combed throughout. I didn't use a pattern, but just cast on some stitches to knit a ribbed border, then worked in stockinette the rest of the way. The brown hat is a 2-ply spun from some natural brown BFL and a hand-dyed BFL roving I purchased at the Renegade Craft Fair a few years ago. I used the Svalbard hat pattern from Kelbourne Woolens, which lent itself to handspun surprisingly well! While I was in Kansas City last weekend, I dropped by one of my favorite area yarn stores, The Studio . There wasn't anything I needed ...

Over the weekend, I met my goal to finish the first sweater piece for the Fieldwork Cardigan : Of course, unblocked, it just looks plain weird, but that is the sleeve and one half of the back of the sweater. The pattern is from the new Pom Pom Quarterly (you can read my recent review here ) and I'm using some gorgeous hand-dyed yarn from the Sincere Sheep ! I visited family over the weekend and made some major progress on my Freia Cowl . It's now at that difficult-to-photograph phase, which means I am very close to being done: Finally, Tyler and I went to the a free show downtown (Speck Mountain and Sharon Van Etten) on Monday night, which was the perfect time to work on my Baah! socks . I even got the heel turned and made it nearly all the way through the gusset shaping: Tyler took some really cool photos at the show - the show took place in the Pritzker Pavilion , which was designed by Frank Gehry and is pretty cool to look at, much less sit in and enjoy music....

Our Kickstarter project 's funding deadline was 11 AM this past Friday; I'm pleased to report that we reached our goal! It was a bit of a nail-biter, but it all ended well. I cannot tell you what a huge relief it is to have that phase of the project complete. It was hard work, but will definitely be worth it - we've already started phase II, wherein we begin pressing the first single! Since Tyler made the video and set up the project, I was in charge of the promotion. I'm certainly glad that I had the help of our friends and family, who shared our updates and project page to help get the word out. It's nice to know we have so much support! I have to admit, I was a little disappointed that only one of our four former strings players took the time to share the project with their friends and family. Even though they are no longer in the band and we don't see them socially, it would have been nice if everyone could have pitched in and at least posted the link ...

I  know it's not knitting-related, but I'd like to update everyone on my band's Kickstarter project which is coming down to the wire - as I write this, we have 51 hours to reach our funding goal (we're just $243 away). You can get the details on my initial blog post or even on our Kickstarter project page , but the long and short of it is that we wanted to do a series of 7" vinyl singles with really cool hand-drawn art. Each single will feature cover art by a different artist (my husband Tyler, a few of our friends, and me) and, let's face it, vinyl is just awesome. We'll also be offering MP3 versions of the songs for our fans that don't own record players (or just want to listen to them on their iPod). The songs are already recorded, mixed and mastered - we just need to raise the funds to press them to vinyl and release them!  Click here to make your pledge if you need some new music to knit to, especially if you need to find that transcendent...

There's not very many WIPs I can share on this blog as we come down to the wire for holiday gift knitting. Perhaps that was the reasoning behind starting this mesh top for myself using the Shangri-La I scored at VK Live? That, and I have no self-control. How many times have I sworn off laceweight at this point in my knitting life? Too many to count, I'm sure. Yet I'm still optimistic that this laceweight top will succeed. Stranger things have happened, I guess! Yarn: Shangri-La (50% yak, 50% silk) Pattern: Filtes Shetland Openwork Dolman by Michelle Porter And now for something a little different, though it is a project that is very near and dear to my heart! A few readers may already know that I'm in a band with my husband called shalloboi . Just last week, our Kickstarter project was approved, so I thought I'd share our musical work in progress on this blog, as it's something we've been working on for quite some time now. I know there are lots of ...

Last week, we watched Soul Power, which was a documentary about the Zaire 1974 concert featuring James Brown and BB King (among other notable musicians) leading up to the famed George Foreman/Mohammed Ali Fight.  Besides featuring some really awesome music, I got a dose of unexpected knitspiration from the Pembe Dance Troupe - check out their amazing costumes, which appear to be totally crafted (knit? crochet?) out of grasses.  Truly incredible!

Alameda Summer Socks Have a seat, grab a snack, and I'll tell you!  The Alameda Summer Socks are my newest pattern, hot off the presses.  Don't let the twisted-stitch pattern intimidate you - they knit up quick in sport-weight yarn! The back story:  I designed these socks to commemorate the three years Tyler and I spent in Portland, OR before we got married and moved to Chicago.  It was there that I got bitten by the knitting bug, and I discovered an exciting world of crafty people and yarn shops filled from floor to ceiling with yarn...up until that point the only place I'd purchased yarn had been Michael's. My favorite yarn stores were Lint (no longer in business), Mabel's (formerly a yarn store/coffee shop combo, also no longer in business) and The Yarn Garden (still in business, hooray!).  The last year we lived in Portland, we lived a few blocks down the street from The Yarn Garden - you can imagine how dangerous that was!  I have many gre...

1.  Superchunk, Majesty Shredding - This album is amazing.  I think this is the greatest Superchunk album since Foolish .  It's hard to say, though, because it's tough for them to make a 'just ok' record.  'Digging for Something' was in my head for at least a week after I bought this.  And I didn't mind! 2.  Grinderman, 2 - It's hard to say what Nick Cave will do next; he always has a surprise in store.  While I did like the first Grinderman album, I find that I don't really listen to it that much.  Not so with this one - I've been listening to it tons since it came out!  In all honesty, it sounds like a Bad Seeds record - which makes me wonder if the Bad Seeds are done for good and this is the next phase for Mr. Cave.  Regardless, he's getting better and better with age. 3.  Beach House, Teen Dream - I resisted the awesomeness of this album at first.  It's true, I didn't want to like it - don't ask me why.  I'm cl...