handmade by stefanie

This past Sunday was the final day of this year's Tour de Fleece, and while I can't claim to have spun every single day that the Tour de France rode, I did manage to spin some nice yarns along the way: Two of those yarns are from the fiber I dyed and blogged about last week ; the other yarns are spun from rolags and batts I've made on my Strauch drum carder, plus I have some singles left to weave with (I've recently discovered that thick-and-thin handspun singles are really fun to weave with). I spun nearly all of the fiber I'd earmarked for this year's event along with 2/3 of the new fiber I acquired and dyed midway through. Not bad!  Last weekend, the Chicago Yarn Crawl kicked off, and although I don't plan to visit a ton of yarn shops, last night I did make a stop to one of my favorite newer stores, Firefly Fiber Arts . And, of course, a skein of yarn followed me home! This yarn was part of a special trunk show to showcase the yarns from th...

After all of my adventures with overdyeing finished knits, I was tempted once again to break out the dye pots for this year's Tour de Fleece event. One of my colleagues hosts a team each year, and for the 2019 TDF, Brown Sheep Company provided us with some spinning fiber....and when I say "some" spinning fiber I actually mean quite a bit - here's a photo of what arrived on my doorstep with my cat Tilly for scale. Now THAT'S a lot of spinning fiber! As lovely as all this fiber is (it's a blend of Rambouillet and Columbia wool - heavenly!), I thought it could use a bit of color. To be totally honest, I've been on a real dyeing kick, so any excuse to break out the dyepots is a good one in my book....and this giant ball o' spinning fiber had me feeling particularly inspired to step outside of my regular color scheme of murky shades and greens and blues. But first, I had to separate it out into smaller bundles so that each one would fit in my dyeing c...

In previous years, I have dutifully spun every day of the Tour de Fleece - even on rest days, even when traveling. There is something programmed deep within me that makes me want to check all those boxes off of my list, even if there isn't an actual end goal or anything at stake. I just have to do it because I can (and, you know, it's fun)! This year was a little different. I started out strong, spinning every day for the first two weeks...and then on Saturday the 21st, things just ground to a halt! I spent all day working on this blog tutorial, and planned to spin in the evening but then my husband texted to say that a customer gave him free tickets to Pitchfork that night...so I met up with him to see The War on Drugs play their set, have a few beers, and be reminded of why I never leave the house (actually, it was fun, but people , y'know?). I also had some swatches for new designs that needed to be finished by the end of last weekend, so that comprised all of my Su...

After a productive weekend, I am down to just two knitting projects on the needles: the shawl that I started last week, and a new hat project using some yarn I'll be reviewing soon. For the shawl, cashmere is the yarn of choice yet again - I'm knitting the  Inauguration Consolation pattern using 3 colors of yarn from Lux Adorna . I started a new hat project using a free pattern from Ravelry, Lake Reed by Asita Krebs. The yarn is a new option from Dalegarn called Lerke Pluss , and I'm excited to give it a try. I think it'll be great for this cabled stitch pattern! I also resurrected my Dillinger hat from time out (if you recall, I'd made a glaring error in the colorwork several inches back). On Sunday I frogged to where I got off track, and now I've resumed knitting - so far, so good...and Robing REALLY wanted to be in this shot, incidentally: I warped a new project on my loom this week, another scarf using some handspun yarn: And, of ...

I just returned from a long weekend visiting family in Kansas City, only to realize that the Tour de Fleece has snuck up on me. I can't believe that it starts tomorrow! I'll be spinning with Team CKT  again this year, which is a super laid-back team hosted by one of my fellow Team Louet Spinners and host of The Corner of Knit and Te a podcast/blog, FluffyK . After spending half of this month traveling, I feel woefully unprepared for this event. Luckily, the point is to spin every day the tour rides and the amount of yarn you spin is less important (if this were Spinzilla, I'd be screwed!!). I was hoping to take stock of my stash and have a more specific plan for this event, but the reality is that I'll have to fly by the seat of my pants. On the plus side, I have plenty of fiber to keep me going: At least I'm not in danger of running out of spinning fiber.... Are you going to spin during this year's Tour de Fleece ? I'd love to hear about ...

Yesterday, the Tour de Fleece came to an end, and I was so close  to spinning all of the fiber that I'd earmarked for the event ! I probably could have gotten through the remaining 4oz of Organic Polwarth, but since the point of this event wasn't how much yardage I could spin, I opted not to take it easy and just spend Sunday spinning the 4 singles I had complete by the end of the previous day. I was also a total lame duck about posting in the Ravelry group thread for the team I "joined" during the event (linked at right, the Corner of Knit & Tea). Oops! Anyway,  I spent most of the final week working on a half-pound of dyed merino from Louet to create these two lovely skeins: On Saturday, I split the first braid of Leading Men Fiber Arts Organic Polwarth into half by weight and spun two singles which I plied together: I think I'll work on that second lonely braid of LMFA Organic Polwarth this week since it looks so nice with its counterpart. And here is...

I've only added two finished skeins to my Tour de Fleece basket since last week. First, I finished a two-ply spun from some rolags I made on my Louet Blending Board that are a blend of shetland, merino, cashmere, alpaca, and other random bits. My second project was finished over the weekend, I spun a thick-and-thin 2-ply from 4oz of mixed merino roving from Yarn Hollow. I kind of like the way they look together - perhaps they will end up in a future project together? For now, they join the skeins I spun in the first week of the Tour de Fleece: Thank goodness the point of this event isn't to spin as much yardage as possible, because I'd really be failing miserably - there just aren't enough hours in the day! But I have managed to spin every day, even on the rest day, which is totally fine by me. Hope you are enjoying the TDF, if you're spinning - see you back here for WIPs & SIPs on Wednesday!

Now that the Cozy Memories Blanket is officially off the needles, I've allowed myself to start some fun new projects. I couldn't resist starting the Wildflowers Cap from the first issue of Making magazine. I'm using two skeins of Naturally Nazareth from Kraemer Yarns, and even though I haven't dedicated much time to working on it, it's coming along fairly quickly - I'm halfway through the colorwork chart! Since more babies are on their way this year, I figured I should get cracking on a little gift knitting. I picked up two skeins of Rowan pure wool worsted to knit the Easy Baby Sweater from More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, but I'm making some mods so that I can have contrasting cuffs and button bands. Basically, I'm making it less easy, but I think it's going to be worth it! I also got started on the second BFL sock , which will be my travel project, provided my arms continue to improve so that I can knit on them pain-free of course. An...

Eight days into this year's Tour de Fleece and I have some finished skeins! 1. Yesterday I plied together three singles spun from some incredibly light & lofty pencil roving that is 49% bison down, 43% merino, and 14% alpaca. 2. Both of these skeins are from the same two Targhee singles from Yarn Geek fibers. 3. These two mini skeins are spun from leftover singles to make random 3-ply yarns. I've surprised myself with how much spinning I've been able to accomplish so far during this year's event. Here's hoping I can keep it up!

The big news is that my cozy memories blanket is off the needles - it just need to have a few ends woven in and then get a nice blocking before I can officially call it done. Whew! It's a weight off my shoulder, that's for sure, and I'm pretty relieved to start July off with this project nearly crossed off my list. Now that I don't have to think about it, I can focus on chipping away at the many sock projects I have on the needles, as much as my hand/arm issues will allow. If I knit slowly enough and in short enough sessions, I can make a tiny bit of progress to inch towards my goal. For instance, over the holiday weekend, I reached HO status for the bright green BFL socks : I'm still plugging away on the Baa Ram Ewe cowl , which is just past the halfway point: Of course, for most of this month I will also be focusing some of my free time to spinning - last Saturday, the Tour de Fleece kicked off, and I decided to start off with some Targhee from Yarn Geek Fib...

It's come to my attention that I once again have too much spinning fiber (ie, all of it does not fit in the very large 60-gallon bin I have earmarked for it). Thank goodness the Tour de Fleece is almost here - it's a great reason for me to dust off my spinning wheel. It's been a month or two since I last finished a spinning project; with all of the travel and weird arm issues, spinning was something that just fell by the wayside. Usually I spin rogue for the TDF, but one of my podcaster friends (who also was on my Spinzilla team last fall), Laura from the Corner of Knit and Tea , is hosting a TDF team this year. There aren't a huge amount of rules to be a part of the team, so of course I joined up - here is the deal with Team CKT : This year, the Tour de Fleece starts on Saturday July 2 and runs until Sunday July 24th, 2016. Guidelines (NOT RULES): Spin every day the Tour rides, if possible. Saturday July 2 through Sunday July 24th. Days of rest: Monday, July...

This was my third year spinning in the Tour de Fleece , and it became unexpectedly challenging when one of my spinning wheels broke during the first week of the event. The wheel ended up being out of commission for much of the tour due to an unfortunate inventory mixup which resulted in having the incorrect part shipped to me twice, and the correct part finally showing up at the beginning of the final week of the event. It was a bummer, to say the least, but on the plus side, I did learn three very important lessons: Cleaning, oiling, tightening screws, and other regular maintenance is a good idea, but don't count on that being enough.  If you have a wheel which is several years old, has seen a lot of action (tally up the number of TDFs and Spinzillas!), or was previously used, the likelihood is higher that something might give out is increased. Plus, even the best-maintained wheel is going to break down at some point from normal use. Things wear out - it happens! Keeping ...

The Tour de Fleece ends this Sunday, and I'm hoping to get a few more spinning projects finished up this weekend. However, I have a LOT of new skeins to share since last Friday's post, starting with the Quick's Point fiber from Cloudlover. It's a generous 360 yards of a two-ply sport weight....and I'm thinking it wants to be SOCKS! Last weekend, I plied the Coopworth into a really lovely two-ply worsted, and I am pretty sure it will want to be a cowl or some fingerless gloves: Yesterday was the "challenge day" for the tour, and since I had a pretty big queue for plying, I decided to see how many singles I could work through in just one day. I started with the Museum Grudge Match singles, since that project had been in progress the longest. Then I quickly plied the wool/flax singles : After that, I ran out of steam. I could have started the dyed merino , but I decided to save it til today. When I'm done with work for the day, I plan on pl...

Are you sitting down? Ok, good. BECAUSE I FINALLY FIXED MY BROKEN SPINNING WHEEL. I apologize for the all caps, but it was truly a monumental day when the CORRECT part arrived on Monday of this week and I was finally able to get my second wheel back into action. As a bonus, they sent me an extra part so that I will have one on hand for the next time this happens (which I assume will be waaaay in the future)!At any rate, I was psyched to finish the second single of my Museum Grudge Match Fiber : Of course, since my regular plying wheel has been taking up the single-spinning slack, there is now a queue for project to be plied. Over the weekend, I finished 8oz of a wool/linen blend from the July Louet Spinzilla Fiber Pack : And THEN (also over the weekend, before the correct part to fix my second spinning wheel arrived, mind you) I started spinning some Louet Dyed Merino in Tawny Gold : I've already started the second single for this project, and once it's finished, I ca...

I've spent a lot of time spinning and knitting this week (at least it seems that way), yet I only have a few totally finished skeins to share here on my blog. How is that possible?! Well, the incorrect replacement part for my broken wheel has now been shipped to me twice. TWICE. I don't want to name names, because the company I ordered it from has been sufficiently apologetic both times, and I think they might even expedite shipment this time for my trouble. Alas, my Museum Grudge Match spinning project is still very much in limbo, but as I said before - at least I have a backup wheel! On the plus side, I was able to finish the Organic Polwarth from  Classy Squid Fiber Co. which I started after The Unfortunate Incident occurred. I plied both singles together last Friday afternoon and the resulting skein is SO soft! The resulting skein is approximately 215 yards of 2-ply sport weight. Over the weekend, I spun 8oz of superwash merino/nylon from Cloudlover  in the Quick...

The spinning wheel breakdown of last week definitely hampered my spinning output, coupled with the swift arrival of...the wrong part to fix it! Luckily, it was just an honest mix-up and the correct part is on its way to me. At least, I hope it is - the error was on the end of the shipper, so here's hoping they don't make the same mistake twice! Thankfully, the point of the Tour de Fleece isn't to spin as much yardage as possible - if this had happened during Spinzilla, I would probably be having another in a series of meltdowns right about now. Instead, I'm just trying to enjoy the process of spinning each day and feeling thankful that I do have a second wheel which I enjoy using every bit as much as my Victoria. Over the weekend, I spun singles from 8 oz. of superwash merino/nylon from Cloudlover in a special colorway called Quick's Point : I have yet to ply them together because I got completely distracted by a huge box of fiber which arrived on Monday from...