handmade by stefanie

November 2021 Update: Unfortunately, the next round of sock pals has been postponed indefinitely due to the sudden retirement of the majority owner of Knit 1.  I'm so sad that we won't get to do another session, but it was fun while it lasted! Popping back in to talk about a subject that has always been near and dear to my heart (even if I don't get to do it as often as I like) - sock knitting! I used to knit socks obsessively, and almost exclusively. But as the years went on, issues with my hands (and golfer's elbow?!) severely limited my ability to knit socks without pain. So for a while, I just didn't make them. And it was a bummer!  But then my brilliant friend Allyson, co-owner of Knit 1 Chicago, came up with a brilliant plan: Sock Pals ! Think of it like a pen pal, but with sock knitting. Sock Pals is a combination of a knit-along & sock swap. You get to pick the yarn color and pattern you want to keep for yourself, and then you get matched up with a myste...

Although it's been a full year since we moved from Chicago, I still have strong yarny ties to the city that was our home for over a decade. Largely, I have the good people at Knit 1 to thank for this - their daily Instagram Live videos are my main connection to the yarn world now that I've left the fiber arts industry, professionally speaking. Their Instagram Garage Sale account  has tempted me far too many times, despite my legitimate SABLE* concerns. Last November, they launched the brilliant Sock Pals program and used one of my patterns for the inaugural KAL. It was so much fun that I've participated in every Sock Pals KAL ever since! So I was thrilled to contribute a new sock pattern to their Designer Subscription Box series for 2021 , which features some fabulous designs from fabulous people using Knit 1's exclusive fabulous yarns (the key word here being FABULOUS). And, 10% of each subscription box is donated to a charity chosen by the designer.  When we started...

As I mentioned on Monday, I made my Holla Knits debut earlier this week with my SpringTastic Socks . This ankle-length sock combines easy eyelet lace with cables to create a fun-to-knit sock that is also quite fast - all the better so you can wear them right away! It's shown above in Manos del Uruguay Alegria , which is a hand-dyed superwash merino sock yarn from the Manos Co-ops. I chose this yarn specifically because I have been wanting to try it ever since it came out, and besides all of the pretty color combinations to choose from, the yarn also has an interesting story: it's Fair Trade ! Each yarn is signed by the artisan who dyed it, and it also tells you which co-op made your yarn. The coloway shown above is Periquito, and it's even more vibrant in real life! You can view all of the colorways here on the Fairmount Fibers website (they distribute the yarn in North America and provided yarn support for this design). Every Manos yarn I've tried has be...

Ever since I discovered that the original yarn called for in my Alameda Sock design was discontinued, I have wanted to update this design. To be totally honest, the yarn I originally chose wasn't particularly well-suited to becoming socks, being that it was a rather inelastic cotton yarn. As much as I wanted a pair of hand-knit cottony summer socks, it just didn't work quite like I had imagined. When two skeins of beautiful Violet GEMS sport weight yarn arrived on my doorstep, I realized they would be the perfect yarn choice for version 2.0 of the Alameda Socks , and last fall I cast on for a pair which would also conveniently serve as my grandmother's Christmas gift. Two birds, one pair of socks! That's the saying, right?? Anyway, I loved the way they turned out, though the yarn substitution did necessitate a few changes to the original pattern due to the difference in gauge. I chose to revise this pattern to be knit in 2 sizes (instead of the original 3)...