handmade by stefanie

Today I'm going to share my possibly-clever tip for bringing a stuffie back from the brink of a sad, one-eyed existence. Recently, one of my " couch monsters " (also known as  cat beds  in these parts) lost one of his safety eyes. It just popped out one day, quite randomly! Two-eyed couch monster: those were the days! I suppose it was bound to happen after years of having his face kneaded into the optimum sleeping conditions by certain feline companions. I couldn't locate the washer that was undoubtedly still located inside his body, and I wasn't about to perform some sort of crazy surgery to reinstall the safety eye. So, I dreamed up the perfect fix: Piratification (trademark pending). I crocheted him an eye patch! How had I not thought of that sooner?! It was super simple to do - here's what I did: Using a small amount of worsted-weight yarn and an E crochet hook (I am a crazy-loose crocheter; feel free to use whatever hook size works best for ...

Today I'm heading home from TNNA , so I will just be sharing this quick craft tip with you - be sure to look for a TNNA-tastic blog post from me later this week! Recently, I was getting ready to start a project and realized I had packed my cord and needle tips in my project bag, but didn't have the tightening key handy. Luckily, I had a safety pin within arm's reach - and it did a great job of pinch-hitting!

In today's post, I'll be talking about how to successfully knit (or crochet!) with hand-dyed and variegated yarns!  Each skein of hand-dyed yarn is unique and often has subtle variations that might not be evident in the skein til you begin to knit with it. Shaded solids are often the easiest to manage when knitting a larger project, while variegated yarns behave differently depending on the dye process.  A selection of hand-dyed yarns. A general rule of thumb for hand-dyed yarns is to alternate skeins of yarn every couple of rows to minimize differences within the dye lot. Yes, I know it sounds fussy, but trust me - it works and it's worth the extra effort! Alternating skeins tricks the eye to blend the colors of each row, which makes it the knitted piece appear more uniform. Not only is this a handy trick when knitting with skeins from the same  dye lot, it also works if you are knitting with skeins from  different  dye lots! Don't believe me? Let's se...