Last week's CMS/Colloquium knitting

I knitted about two and a half repeats of the faux argyle pattern on the leg of my second sock last Thursday.  I started with the second row of the leg (after the ribbed cuff) and was pleasantly surprised when the first talk finished that I had knitted almost 20 rounds!  The faux argyle repeat is 16 rounds, and I am putting 4 repeats on the leg. 

I realized yesterday that I'm not at all ahead in terms of starts and finishes.  Since the beginning of February, I've finished 16 projects and started 8, so according to my self-imposed rule I need to finish two more things before I start the next new project.  But I have at least two projects I want to make for Christmas gifts, and I haven't started either of them yet!  I might have to go into project-finishing debt this December ...

Mod Baby Quilt

One of my very good friends is having a baby very soon.  Her baby shower was last week, and I made her this baby quilt.  She has a very modern aesthetic, and I wanted to make the quilt to match that, so I used this tutorial from Oh Fransson to make the blocks for the front and I enlarged this block with a low volume scrappy background for the back.  I really love how the back turned out.  Also, this friend is a mathematician so I was really excited to find the black print - I don't think it's visible in the picture, but it is an arithmetic print!

The nursery has dark blue, lime green, and orange furnishings and decorations, so I looked for fabric in those colors for the front. 

After I finished the five mosaic blocks, Robert helped me choose a layout and draw it to scale, and I worked with that to cut the background fabric.

I quilted it with freemotion starbursts on vertical lines.  I got the idea from the quilting on this quilt by Kelsey at Everyday Fray. 

I used light grey thread on the back and switched thread back and forth on the front, with navy on the background and light grey on the mosaic blocks.  It was a little bit frustrating at first to get the tension right with different colors on the front and back.  I never got it perfect, but it's not bad.  It got a little bit better after I washed it. 

The quilt seemed to go over well at the baby shower.  I hope my friend and her family enjoy it!

CMS/Colloquium knitting

I finished the foot and toe of my first Business Casual sock on Thursday.  I decided to continue the faux argyle pattern into the beginning of the toe, because I wanted the last point to be a center one.  Now that I see it in the picture, I'm not 100% sure that was the right choice, but the toe is now drafted so it's too late to change and I don't think it's that important, anyways.

I took it with me to go to a math conference and visit family this weekend, and the ribbed cuff on the second sock is now almost done. 

I saw a woman knitting at the conference on Saturday!  I was kind of excited.  She was only knitting during the break between talks, not during the talks themselves.  I haven't ever brought knitting to a conference, and I don't have any plans to (although I did see something online about a knit-in or something at the joint math meetings?  I might bring knitting to something like that, but not to the rest of the conference).

CMS/Colloquium knitting

My Business Casual socks are the only knitting project that I currently have on the needles, so that's what I took to school with me to work on during CMS and Colloquium this past week.  I started on the second row of the foot (after the end of the gusset decreases) and knitted about two thirds of the way to the toe. 

"Girl Vomit" Quilt

My church's Fall fundraiser/auction was last weekend, and I donated this quilt (which I had finally finished the week before!)  I pieced this quilt top in July 2012, but I didn't get around to basting, quilting, and binding it until this Fall.  I liked the fabrics a lot when I bought them as a bundle, but I don't think they work very well together.  There's not enough value contrast.  Also, it's a LOT of pink. 

I am really proud of the free-motion machine quilting I did on it, though!  I used an idea from Leah Day's site: Quilt Busting Flower Power.  I quilted five large flowers and then filled in the rest of the quilt with a loopy meander. I think it turned out beautifully!

I'm glad to be finished with another project, and glad to have improved my fmq skills!

Last Week's CMS/Colloquium knitting

I finished the mitered square part of this knitted object last Thursday afternoon. I have a very small amount left of three of the colors, but certainly not enough to do another row. I'm pretty happy with the size (I did measure it, but I didn't write down the dimensions and now I don't remember what they were).

 My task now is to weave in all of the many many yarn ends on the back. When I first started this back in college, I was very disciplined about weaving the ends in as d finished each mitered square, but since I picked it up again I've only woven in the starting end for each square I which I do as I'm knitting the second row. I've taken this home and I'm trying to do 5 ends every time l sit down to watch TV, so I never feel overwhelmed with this huge and unpleasant task. After the ends are all woven in I'll put a black border on it somehow.