handmade by stefanie

Confession time: I had to order an extra skein of Canopy Worsted in Macaw to finish my Rocky Coast Cardigan (luckily there were still a few skeins of Malabrigo Worsted on sale to make my order worthwhile). At this point in my knitting life, I should have known to purchase an extra skein of yarn from the beginning; I cannot tell you how many calls we'd get at Lorna's Laces from people who needed just one more skein of a particular dye lot to finish their sweater - let's just say I'd be retiring quite early if I had a dollar for each call, and that was just in the four years I worked there. So close to being done: sweater mess-in-progress I would have been fine with the recommended 900 yards of worsted-weight yarn, except I decided I wanted roomier sleeves. I figured I'd be cutting it close, but on Friday night, there was no denying that I was going to run out of yarn. I even wound off my final skein of yarn and began to knit the collar, but it was still clea...

I dedicated most of this weekend to working on my Destash Dolman , only to realize that I'd miscalculated the amount of yarn I needed when substituting. Oops! On the plus side, it fit very well when I tried it on, so I know I'll be pleased with it when it's completed...whenever that is! The problem is, the yarn I ran out of ( Anzula Squishy in Clay) is apparently not one that is sold in many shops. Also, it's $36; kind of a bummer to drop that kind of cash on a skein of yarn from which you'll only use about 100 yards! Usually in this type of situation, I can track down a skein in someone's Ravelry stash that they're willing to sell, but no such luck. Ah, well, these things happen. I'll put this project on hibernation for a bit and concentrate on other things....like swatching for my next sweater, the Rocky Coast Cardigan ! I thought I'd share a few photos from the barista throwdown at Metropolis that I mentioned last week. In this one, you ca...

The Rule of Threes paid me a visit recently.  The mildest case involved a monster do-over caused by a simple miscalculation of yardage while using leftover skeins from my stash.  Not the end of the world, admittedly, but I did find myself frogging an entire monster body on Tuesday night - not how I'd hoped to spend the evening! I also recently knit the Brier Toque (from Weekend Knits ) with a gorgeous skein of Neighborhood Fiber Company Watershed Sock yarn that I bought at Article Pract several years ago on our west coast 'tour.'  The colorway is Glover Park, and I've been saving it for a special occasion.  The hat started out well enough, but after a while my bamboo needles (and fingers!) started to turn a deep forest green.  Uh oh.  Yet I pressed onward! Once the hat was done, I tossed it in a nice bath of a bit of Eucalan and some cool water.  And the water turned green.  So I put it in another bath.  And another!  By the tim...