Last week's CMS/Colloquium knitting

My birthday was at the end of February, and my mom gave me a knitting kit she assembled herself: a skein of hand-dyed yarn (naturally dyed with madder) that she got while she was travelling earlier in the month, and a choice of three fingering-weight shawl patterns.  I chose one of the patterns ("Happenstance") and cast on.  It's moving pretty quickly - this is what it looked like at the end of my seminars just over a week ago, and it's grown quite a bit since then.

The yarn is a single-ply merino-silk blend, and it has a really beautiful sheen.  I think this is going to be a really lovely shawl once it's finished and blocked out!

Knitting on airplanes

I knit these socks almost entirely on airplanes and in airports ... they're my job interview socks!  I started them on the way to the Joint Math Meetings, where I interviewed for a whole bunch of jobs, and then continued knitting on my way to and from several campus interviews.  Now I'm finished with the socks, but unfortunately not quite done with interviews.

This pattern, Skew from Knitty, has a very interesting and unusual construction.  The socks are knit from the toe up, on the bias, and then there are some extra increases and decreases, and suddenly you're grafting the back of the heel together and continuing up the leg.

There is a left sock and a right sock.

The yarn is Shibui Staccato Sock, and it was lovely to work with.  I got it from my mom a few years ago, and when I decided to knit socks from it I went on the hunt for a pattern that would show off the color changes in the yarn.  I think Skew was perfect!

Pattern: Skew
Size: one size
Yarn: Shibui Staccato Sock
Needles: I already can't remember - US2 DPNs?
Started/Completed: January 2016/March 2016
Modifications: none

Friday Night Sew-In

I sewed myself a shirt Friday night (actually I finished it Saturday afternoon, but most of the work was done Friday night).  It's the Seamwork Akita.  The pattern claims that it can be sewn up in one hour, which was not my experience at all, but then I'm a pretty slow and somewhat inexperienced sewist.  It took me one hour just to tape and cut out the pattern piece, plus probably a good 3 hours of sewing.

And then when I was done, I discovered that it doesn't fit correctly.  At all.  If you look closely at this picture, you can see that the dart is way too low:

I really like the fabric, though, and in general I like the style.  It's pretty comfortable, and was definitely easy to sew (except that my fabric wouldn't take a crease, which made it a bit harder, but still).  If I can move the dart so it fits me I can see myself making a bunch of these.

I told my mom I would let her have this shirt if it fits her and she likes it, but I think instead I might try cutting it up to make a different shirt.  One thing about it that was definitely a success (but you can't see it in the pictures) is that I finished the neckline with metallic gold bias tape.

Pattern: Seamwork Akita
Size: 8, no modifications
Fabric: a mystery synthetic print handed down via my husband's grandmother and my sister-in-law

Friday Night Sew-In

The strap on the purse I made in 2013 wore out. I still loved the purse -  it was the right size and I'm really happy with the way the three interior pockets help me keep track of things, but the strap and outside were too threadbare to take out in public any more.

So I bought some canvas fabric, and a few weeks ago I disassembled the old purse, made a new canvas exterior, and spent a Friday night putting it back together.

I'm really happy with how it turned out!  Re-using the old interior saved a lot of materials and time. The only hitch was that the new exterior turned out slightly bigger than the old one, so if you look closely you can see that I had to ease the together fairly aggressively at the top  edge.  I also made the strap a bit too long.  But overall, I feel like my favorite purse has a new lease on life.  Hopefully it will last another two and  a half years!

CMS/Colloquium knitting

I started a new project in CMS on Thursday: a Trellis Cardigan in Lindy Chain yarn.  It is not the same Trellis cardigan that I recently knit for my nephew!

I want a new dressy-ish lightweight cardigan.  For years, I wore plain cotton cardigans from Land's End.  I had a navy blue one and a magenta one and loved them both, but eventually they wore out.  I currently have a yellow cable cardigan from Eddie Bauer, but I don't love it.  It doesn't seem to have enough body, so it just droops in front, and I can never seem to get the shoulders to sit right.  Since I can knit more sweaters than I need, I decided to try to knit the sweater I really want to wear.

I'm not sure that this yarn is the best choice for this sweater, but I'm going to give it a try.  I didn't knit a swatch, but I'm thinking of doing that before I get too much farther, just to make sure I'm knitting the right size (although the projects I found on Ravelry noted that gauge didn't change much after washing).

Interview socks

I'm graduating this year and on the job market, so I'm traveling a lot for interviews this spring. First there was a trip for conference interviews, now multiple trips for campus interviews. Before my conference trip, I decided I needed a new project, and here it is: Skew socks from Knitty.  They have an unusual geometry, which is interesting for a mathematician knitter. Also, there is a right and left foot, which is cool.

The yarn is a sock yarn I got from my mom and have had in my stash for a while. The color changes in the yarn are perfect for highlighting the unusual shaking in the pattern!

CMS/Colloquium knitting: Stripey Socks!

I don't have any CMS knitting to report on from this week, since I finished my self-striping socks in Colloquium the week before.  I'm thrilled with how they look and how they fit!

I spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of heel I wanted to knit - I didn't want to interrupt the striping pattern, so a traditional heel flap and gusset was out.  I tried a fleegle heel on the first sock, and that made the stripes very narrow in a way I didn't like, so that was out, too.  I thought I didn't want an afterthought/forethought heel because those tend to be way too tight around the arch of my foot.  I ended up doing a lot of internet research on sock patterns for self-striping yarns and ways to make short-row heels fit better.  I settled on a mini-gusset for a forethought heel, from a fantastic sock article by Kate Atherley in Knitty (link below).  Then I knitted a round heel.  I was a bit amused to see that the round heel put a green dot on the underside of my heel - it's visible in the picture above.

The round heels pucker when the socks are flat, but they fit really well on my feet.

Here's how much yarn I have left over.  I used almost all of it!

Pattern: My own toe-up, forethought heel sock pattern, using the toe from Fleegle's basic recipe, the section of Knitty's Socks 102 article on "Adding Gussets to a Short Row Heel for Better Fit," and for the heel, the round toe/heel instructions from More Sensational Knitted Socks
Size: 64 sts for foot and leg
Yarn: KnitPicks Felici self-striping sock yarn in "Wizard"
Needles: 2.5mm sock DPNs
Started/Completed: July 2015/January 2016
Modifications: I added an additional 6 stitches on each side of the top of the foot for the gusset.  Then I started the ribbing on the "back" half of the leg (the half without the extra gusset stitches) immediately after knitting in the waste yarn for the heel, while keeping the front half stockinette until I had decreased away all of the gusset stitches, then switched to 1x1 ribbing for the front as well.  This helped eliminate a bit of bagging at the back ankle, without drawing attention to the fact that gusset decreases were happening.