handmade by stefanie

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...

My needles are spoiled this week! I'm (still) working with some heavenly yak yarn from Bijou Basin Ranch and making sloooooooooow progress on my chevron socks : As if that weren't enough, I was given a skein of Zealana AIR Chunky at TNNA, which is pretty much the definition of luxury. It's a blend of cashmere, possum and silk, and as the name would imply, it truly is light as air. It's also incredibly soft and warm! Late last week, I decided to make a pair of fingerless gloves and cast on for a pair of Maine Morning Mitts by Clara Parkes from the Knitter's Book of Yarn. Little did I know that tagging Ms. Parkes herself on instagram would elicit a response ! This simple knit is just flying off the needles - all I need is to make the thumbs and I'm good to go! 90% of mitt #2 was completed last night at knit night, if that gives you any indication to just how quickly these can be made. In other news, I have - at long last - finished spinning the singles ...

Over the weekend, I finished my Spindleberry Shawl , can you believe it? I wasn't planning to start a new project so close to TNNA, but I ended up casting on for a pair of socks with some Tibetan Dream that's been in my stash for a while now: The pattern is called The Hub of Fashion, and the body of the sock is knit sideways, something I've never done before! Here we have the rarely-seen Robin photobomb: I'm still not finished with my Dorper project for Spinning Spring Training ; I was hoping to at least finish the singles before I left town, but realistically, that's probably not going to happen: I've also been making progress on my North Hollow Cowl in the new yarn from Blue Sky Alpacas, Extra - over the weekend I finished the first half and started the second half: It's soooo soft! I am really enjoying working with it, and the design is turning out to be the right mix of mindless/mindful knitting: it took a little concentration to get every...

Over the weekend, I made some major progress on my WIPs! It was so nice on Sunday afternoon, I took my wheel out onto the back porch to spin and enjoy some of my husband's home brew. I managed to fill bobbin #2, start bobbin #3 and surpass the halfway point (weight-wise) in a matter of hours! I also worked quite diligently on my shawl , and on Monday night I reached the halfway point! Now I am decreasing across the remainder of the shawl, and I'm hoping to have it done just before I leave for TNNA next week. It's definitely reached the hard-to-photograph stage, that's for sure! Yesterday I decided to start knitting a brand-new pattern (the North Hollow Cowl by Robin Melanson) out of a brand-new yarn called Extra ! The whole kit & caboodle arrived at my house last week (along with some other goodies I'll be sharing on future posts). They were sent to me to try out, which is a pretty nice perk of my job, I can't lie. It's hard to go wrong with Bl...

In the wake of finishing several WIPs over the weekend, I was on the prowl for a new project I could start in addition to the MANY top-secret projects which are currently on my needles. Yes, there are exciting things afoot (pun intended), and I can't wait til I get to share them with you! Alas, that won't be for a while...next month at the earliest, to be exact. Until then, I'll be ever-so-slowly knitting on my new WIP, the Spindleberry Shawl by Joanna Johnson. I'm using a skein of Skein Merino Cashmere Fingering in the Ochiba colorway; I realized that I didn't have a single grey shawl, and this just happened to be in my stash!  I was able to snag the pattern for free when it was first published thanks to my Ravulous Hot Right Now widget that I have on my phone ( click here to read my review ). I've never made anything with fringe, and it's not something I would normally be into....but for some reason I like it in this design. Bonus: the fringe ...