Denim Skirt

One of the MANY things I did this weekend (along with going to Robert's brother's graduation, helping Robert's brother and sister-in-law move, cleaning my oven, socializing with friends who no longer live in the area, giving said friends a ride to the airport, going to church, and baking a birthday strawberry-rhubarb pie for Robert) was to convert a pair of jeans that didn't fit me into a skirt. 

I bought the jeans earlier this spring on super-sale from L.L. Bean.  I knew there was a good chance I wouldn't like the way they fit, but I only paid $7 for them and the shipping was free, so I figured I didn't have anything to lose.  When they arrived, they fit in the waist, but the butt and legs were quite baggy.  I was going to give them to the thrift store, but then I decided I could make a skirt instead - I used to have one that I made from an old pair of jeans, and I liked it so much I wore it out. 

The first thing I learned was that L.L. Bean makes really good quality jeans.  The inseams and crotch seams both had several lines of stitching and were much more difficult to pick apart than I remember the seams being on the last pair of jeans I did this to.  When I started to re-sew the seams, I had major tension problems.  My machine really didn't like to sew with the heavy duty orange denim thread I bought to match the thread the  pants were sewn with at the factory.  I ended up having to buy a special 110/18 denim needle, and even so I had to crank up the tension higher than I've ever had it set to on this machine to avoid loops on the bottom of the fabric. 

When I cut the legs off, I measured and cut as little off as possible so that the remaining leg and the inserts from the cut-off legs would be roughly the same length after I sewed the front and back seams.  The jeans were "talls," so that resulted in an unhemmed skirt that was well past my knees.  Then I put it on and had Robert mark the tops of my knee-caps with chalk.  I measured the distance from the marks to the top of the waistband (23") and extended the line all the way around the skirt - I decided to make it 24" long in the back.  Then I cut about a half inch below the line, zig-zagged around the very edge, folded it under at the chalk line, pinned it, and sewed two seams to try to imitate the original hem that you see on pretty much every pair of jeans. 

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  It's definitely way better than the jeans I started with, and the whole thing only cost about $15, including the thread and the special sewing machine needles!

Garden socks finished!

Here's another finish from last week.  I finished weaving in the many green ends, and the garden socks are now in my sock drawer.  I'm happy with how they turned out.  They are a little on the short side, but I think that's okay.  I didn't want a long and awkward-looking green cuff. 

Felted soap

Even though there are no colloquia in the summer, and I'm focusing on math right now (like, a lot), I'm still working on some projects - and thinking about others.  I realized that I won't be able to make a new dress or skirt before the end of June at the earliest (so if I do make one this summer I won't finish in time to wear it this summer) and that made me kind of sad.  But last week I made this quick and easy project.  I started with a lavender Dr. Bronner's bar of soap, wrapped it with colored wool, and felted it in a bowl of hot tap water.  I put it in my locker at the gym, so now I don't have to use the gross-smelling soap they have in the showers in the locker room anymore.  That makes me happy.  The felt is sort of like a built-in washcloth, and it keeps the wet soap from making a mess in my locker. 

Last CMS/Colloquium of the semester

Last Thursday we had the last CMS and Colloquium of the semester.  This week we have finals, and then we're in to summer!  I'll keep working on my various projects (I made one start to finish yesterday!) and try to keep posting often over the summer.  CMS and Colloquium weekly updates will resume in late August.

Robert's hiking stick

Robert finished his hiking stick about two weeks ago. He smoothed out all of the rough bits, sealed it with multiple coats of polyurethane, and put a copper cap on the bottom end to protect it from wearing down with use. It's really quite beautiful.

His next project is a small nostepinne for me. Just about all of the commercially available nostepinnes I've seen are HUGE. My mom has a small one that she bought at a living history museum in Denmark in 1993, and Robert offered to carve me one that will fit my hands and the skinny sock yarn I usually knit with!

CMS/Colloquium knitting

The past two weeks have been pretty tough. I've been very busy at school, and my grandfather died on March 31. I wasn't at colloquium or CMS last week because I was traveling to the funeral. The service was lovely, and it was good to be together with my family.

The knitting project I've been working on lately is this cowl. I've been alternating working on this and my embroidered tablecloth when we watch TV in the evenings, but since my garden socks are all done except for weaving in a few ends, this is my new CMS/colloquium project. Here it was before CMS yesterday:
And here it was after. It's now just over half way done:

CMS/Colloquium knitting

My garden socks are almost done! I just need to finish the second cuff and weave in all the ends on both socks. I'm happy with the length of the legs, and I used up just about all of the purple yarn.

I don't think it's very clear in the pictures, but I tried to do a ruffled cuff/bind off. One of the issues with toe-up socks is that cast-offs are often not as stretchy as cast-ons, so you have to be careful that you'll be able to get the bound-off edge around your heel to get the socks on and off, and that it won't be too tight around your leg while you're wearing them. I also wanted the cuff to echo the waves of the feather and fan lace. What I decided to do was knit into the front and back of every stitch on the second-to -last round before the bind-off, so I had twice as many stitches as in the body of the sock, which creates a bit of a ruffle. I think it solved both problems pretty well.