handmade by stefanie

Part of the appeal of a chunky or bulky weight sweater probably has something to do with how quickly it knits up...but I wouldn't really know, because I spent exactly 10 months knitting this sweater! The pattern is the Rockling Cardigan from Graphic Knits, and I used the called-for yarn, Cascade Eco+. It turned out a little larger than I was expecting, especially in the sleeves: ..but I can fold up the cuffs and make it work: The idea is that this would be a snuggly layering sweater, so I'm ok with an excess of positive ease....although we discovered that it fits Tyler (albeit snugly), so perhaps I went a little overboard in that department? Honestly, it's been so long since I started this project that I can't even recall whether or not I got gauge - and of course, I kept no notes whatsoever, because why would I want to refer back to those at any point?! Last fall, I bought these fun owl buttons to use on this sweater, thinking I would have it fi...

Since two of my WIPS are top secret, today is going to be a very short post! I did manage to add a few more rounds to the first sleeve on my Block Island Pullover : Sadly, I didn't work very much on my Caesious Shawl in the last week, so my only other shareable project is my scrap yarn blanket - look at how much it's grown since last week! When I'm ready to start a new section of squares, I've taken to laying it all out beforehand to see how everything looks together, then taking a reference shot to work from. How's that for short, sweet & to the point?! See you back here on Friday, when I evaluate my February Goals !

Today is a special post, since I'm starting not one but TWO excellent KALs this month! Lorna's Laces Fisherman in 36ns Chocolate. I'm joining thousands of knitters as we take the Yarn Nation 30 Day Sweater Challenge , and you can, too, by clicking this link ! I'll be using some yarn from my stash (two skeins of Lorna's Laces Fisherman in Chocolate) and the Uma pattern from Chic Knits . Originally, I was going to follow the recipe found in the 30-Day Sweater eBook (available here ), but I had a hard time deciding what to do - did I want to do some colorwork? What about cables or some sort of stitch pattern? Did I really have time to figure all of this out, even with the easy-to-use formula provided in the eBook? Probably, but I must admit that I am kind of lazy when it comes to sweater-knitting: I'll wing it for just about any other project, but for sweaters, I prefer to use existing patterns. I know that I should step outside my comfort zone this time,...

ETA: Since Google Reader has gone the way of the dinosaur, I'd like to invite you to follow my blog with Bloglovin  so you don't miss out on my latest posts! I've made a lot of progress since I last blogged about my Fieldwork Cardigan : both of the back pieces are complete, and now I am working on the front left side. It's definitely at that tough-to-photograph stage, so this is probably the last time I'll be posting photos til it's complete! I find I am zipping through this pattern now that I'm so familiar with the stitch pattern, and it's possible that I can have it finished in a few more weeks, even with the TNNA Trade show this weekend. Since I finished a few projects over the weekend that I'll be posting about on Friday, I started a Louie the Lovebot (though I'm not sure if I'll be adding on the heart - if I do, it will be after the fact using duplicate stitch rather than intarsia). Also,  I needed to have an "easy" ...

At long last, I get to share the two projects I finished over Memorial Day Weekend! The  Fleece Artist Socks  are a new design I'll be releasing later this summer. I'm not sure what I'll be naming them quite yet, but of course I will keep you posted here on my blog, or you can sign up for my newsletter to be notified via email when it comes out (just enter your email on the top right sidebar)! This is just a quick shot we took yesterday before Tyler went to work; there will be a more 'official' photo shoot soon! I also finished my  Elfe  sweater, which surely must be a record for me. I am the world's slowest sweater-knitter but I still managed to make this project in under a month! The yarn, Grinning Gargoyle's Seda Sock, feels sooo nice to wear. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out: Worldwide Knit in Public Week kicks off tomorrow, but I'm not sure if I'll be going to any of the events here in Chicago. It's been a really ...

Hooray, it's WIP Wednesday! All of my projects from last week have seen some serious progress in the last week. My Elfe sweater is looking much more sweater-y: Last night, I started the heel flap on my second sock : And yet another destash sock yarn hat is nearing completion: Thanks for stopping by this week. For more WIP Wednesday inspiration, visit the  Tami's Amis Blog !

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...

I finished my third and final Malabrigo March project on the last day of the month (with a few hours to spare!). I ended up using a small amount of Arroyo in Escorias that was left over from the Mushin Cowl as a contrast color once it became obvious that I would run out of Plomo before getting to the border. It was just my good luck that I liked the way they look together! Basically, I knit the body til I ran out of yarn, then picked up stitches for the border and began the long, slow process of an i-cord bindoff. I had about 5g of Plomo reserved for finishing each sleeve, which worked out pretty well - all told, I probably had 4-5 yards of Plomo left over. I spent last Sunday morning weaving in the ends, and then there was the moment of truth: trying it on. It even fits! It's not totally perfect, but considering what a random experiment it was, I'm pretty pleased with the results. For those of you who missed earlier posts about this project, I used an app called Raglan...

It's done, it's done, it's DONE! On Monday night, my yarn order arrived and I set to work finishing up the final bits of my Rocky Coast Cardigan . By the end of Tuesday night, all of the ends were woven in (and there were many!) and it was time to block in some lavender Eucalan ! All in all, it was totally worth reknitting the sleeves and purchasing one more skein of yarn at the 11th hour. It's the perfect cardigan and I'm so excited that I finished it with plenty of time to enjoy it before warm weather arrives, though I think I will add some sort of closure at the top. I also finished a few more owl hats, which were made in the interim before Malabrigo March began. From R-L: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Douglas Fir & Growth; The Fibre Company Organik in Algae and Claystone, and  Malabrigo Worsted  in Pigeon and  Knit Picks   Andean Silk (which is apparently discontinued) in Imperial. Deal alert!   I'm excited to offer you an excl...

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...

Remember my Calm Cowl ? I have been working on it steadily since I last shared it on this blog , but I feel like it will never be finished! I am nearly done with the third ball of yarn (Wisdom Yarns' Limerick), but I think that I'll keep going and dip into my fourth ball. It's certainly been a great project to take on-the-go; it's accompanied me to various places such as our favorite coffee shop, a bowling alley, and the Genius Bar at the Apple store, not to mention countless trips on the CTA. My Sock Monkey Monkey is nearing completion; even though I feel like I don't work on it very much (it is the "kitchen" project du jour), somehow I am coming down the home stretch at last. I am loving the yarn, which is a hand-dyed worsted with a very nice twist from Haldecraft . Can't wait to finish my monkey! Just as soon as I finished Tyler's gloves last Friday night, I cast on for the Rocky Coast Cardigan  with the Canopy Worsted I scored for 5...

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...

I've made some major progress on my Calm Cowl , which recently joined me for a few journeys on the CTA and a barista throwdown at the coffee shop where my husband works. Just last night I started on my third ball of yarn! I've made a little more progress on the Destash Dolman , which I'll be focusing on for the weeks to come so that I can get it off the needles finally. I'm halfway through the 19th stripe! My only other WIP is the  Roundie Bag that I'm crocheting for my grandmother's birthday. I haven't made much progress since Monday, but I'm hoping to finish it over the upcoming weekend. The yarn is Manos Yarns' Maxima , and I just happened to get this started in time with their Fair Trade February event! That wraps it up for this week, see you back here on FO Friday! Looking for a little WIP Wednesday inspiration? Hop over to the Tami's Amis Blog for all the blogginess you can handle!

We're back in Chicago and it's time to get back to my usual blogging and work schedule. There are two projects left over from 2012 to share on my first WIP Wednesday of 2013 - so far, I have resisted the urge to cast on for anything else! I've made some major progress on the lacy mesh top I've been knitting with Shangri-La . While I was in Kansas City, I finished the first piece, undid the provisional cast-on at the start, and began the second piece from those stitches. On the train yesterday, I was able to complete the sleeves and decrease down to the body of the sweater. It won't be long til I'm totally done - I hope to be seaming and blocking by next week! My second WIP was started on Christmas day and will definitely be a long-term project: I'm making the Panoramic Stole from Coastal Knits using a skein of Malabrigo Sock in Chocolate Amargo. I traded the yarn from a friend ( check out her blog here ) and was looking for a good project to put it t...

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...

I wanted to take a few weeks before revisiting the two Fresh Designs Series books I have yet to review ( Fresh Designs: Sweaters and Fresh Designs: Men). For those of you who missed last month's review of Fresh Designs: Scarves and Fresh Designs: Shawls, you can click here to get up to speed. There are also a lot of general notes about the book series as a whole, which I'll summarize in the following bullet points before we move on to the task at hand: Graphics: A clean, modern aesthetic. Patterns are clearly written and laid out in a way that's easy to follow and include well-shot photos of each design. Bonus points for non-conventional models! Stitch patterns are written out and charted when necessary. Charts are readable and easy-to-follow (only one lace design has an unavoidably small chart) Patterns have all the information you need right there - no rifling through the book to find the symbol or abbreviation key.  Each garment has at least 4 size options, som...

Instagrammed: Beulah Cardi If it seems like my blog is a little less active than usual, it's because I'm back in the submarine (the term Tyler and I use whenever we're working a ton and not coming up for much air).   TNNA is just around the corner and there is much to do between now and then!  Besides that, I am also trying to give myself some time off before things get all crazy busy again.  In a nutshell, that means that I am knitting faster than I can blog about it. The biggest knitting accomplishment of the past month would definitely be finishing my Beulah Cardigan .  It's been a while since I've done a skinny-yarn sweater, and this one was actually pretty quick to knit (relatively speaking).  What always takes me the longest is getting enough chutzpah to seam and sew on the buttons.  In this particular scenario, those final details took several weeks for me to complete. Unfortunately, that's quite standard for me. The pattern is Mercedes Ta...