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.

Handmade Christmas Part 2

I made Christmas sweaters for my niece, who is 2, and my nephew, who is now 7 months old.  The one for my nephew is the 12-month size of Trellis, heavily modified for symmetry and to reduce seaming.  The yarn is Berroco Vintage, which I didn't really love knitting with.  I chose it because it's the right weight, it's machine washable, and it's only 40% wool (which means it's 60% synthetic, hence the not loving it) and for a while it looked like my nephew was going to have really sensitive skin, so I didn't want to knit him something 100% wool that he might be allergic to. Also, I really, really do love this color green.  Robert really liked the finished sweater, and tried to request one in his size.  He might eventually get one, but probably not any time soon.

For my niece, I used the kids raglan recipe from The Knitter's Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters.  I knit the smallest size.  I was inspired by this sweater (knit by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee several years ago).  The colored yarn is Liberty Wool color #7864.  I loved knitting with this yarn.  The grey yarn is Valley Yarns Charlemont, held double.  I found these cute little star buttons that I think are perfect for this sweater.

I really kind of want a sweater exactly like this.  Too bad I already have a lot of sweaters (and plans for more sweaters that aren't this one).

Here's a picture of the back of my nephew's sweater.  It's symmetric, which makes me happy!  The one thing I'm not in love with about this sweater is the seam at the back of the collar, which is visible in this photo if you look closely.  The instructions said to graft it, which I did in stockinette after spending over an hour researching grafting in seed stitch.  Turns out a true seed stitch graft isn't possible.  This was highly disappointing to me, but I can't think of any solution.

We also received a few handmade gifts, including this succulent sitting in a knitted felted succulent sweater.  Isn't it adorable?

Handmade Christmas Part 1

I made two little bear carriers from the Oliver + S Little Things to Sew book.  One for my niece (whose back you see in the top photo) and one for my cousin's daughter.  Both girls are two, and even though the book says the carrier will fit children 3 though 8, it fit both of them just fine.

I left the soft part of the velcro off the straps until Christmas day, because without trying it on one of the girls, I had no sense of where I should put it.  I bought one yard of velcro tape total, and ended up cutting the soft side into 16 equal pieces.  I sewed the first one on each strap about 15" from the end, and then spaced three more evenly between the first one and the end of the strap.  (Hopefully this information will be helpful for someone else sewing this as a gift for a toddler!)

The bear carriers went over well!  I didn't get any good photos, because I was using my phone camera and two-year-olds move fast, so all of my pictures ended up pretty blurry.  This was a pretty easy and satisfying project.  I'll definitely make it again if I need a gift for a young child!