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Weekend knitting progress report here...

I finished another Shedir, for yet another friend going through chemotherapy for breast cancer. This time it's a woman who's only 28. 28, people. It's heartbreaking. The amazing part of the story is that she had a full mastectomy last year. This spring she went in for her breast reconstruction. While they were in there, they found more cancer. If she hadn't decided to go through with getting implants, it would have been a lot later by the time they found it, so her prognosis is now much better. But it's sad that a surgery that was supposed to be an exciting "end" to her cancer fight ended up being one that started a whole new battle.

Here's her Shedir:

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And the requisite shot of the beautiful crown decreases, again with J as my model:

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Pattern: Shedir , by Jenna Wilson, from Knitty (pattern link is a PDF of several patterns for the special Breast Cancer issue).
Yarn: Rowan Calmer (75% cotton, 25% acrylic), in Chocolate #481
Needles: US2/2.75mm
Gauge: A bit hard to tell since there's virtually no stockinette stitch to measure, but each pattern column is a smidge larger than 1" when the hat is unstretched.
Modifications: I had to go down a needle size to US2 to get gauge, and I still think this one came out larger than my last one. I may have to go out and find some 2.5mm needles next time I knit it. And I already have the plum yarn for another one, I love this hat.

And now, for a Summer of Socks update. Since I finished my Monkeys, I had to cast on for something new. I went back and forth between another pair for myself or my first pair for M. He's got extremely wide size 10.5-11 feet, and I had planned on waiting until I found some nice sport weight yarn to make him socks. But alas, I caught a sale at knit2purl2, and picked up some Lorna's Laces in Baltic Sea that I thought he'd like. So, gourds help me, I'm knitting him socks in fingering weight:

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It's the first time I've tried to do calf shaping on a sock, and the heinousness of getting 3" down not one, not two, but three times and having to rip tells you what sort of success I'm having with it. It shouldn't be that hard, right? I did consult Grumperina's successful calf shaping description for man socks, but since I'm knitting top-down and didn't want 2x2 ribbing, I had to fudge a bit. At first I was doing 3x1 ribbing. Odd numbers means no "center" of the stitches as she had, so I started decreasing 2 stitches every so many rows by doing a double decrease starting at the k3 in pattern.

My first attempt at this double decrease was doing it as sl2,k1,psso. But that left the center stitch raised like in the Jaywalker pattern, which of course I knew, but didn't consider. I didn't really like it, as it made the decreases stand out too much. Rip #1.

Next I tried another type of double decrease, the sl1,k2tog,psso. I've always thought of this as a left-leaning double decrease, but I read in at least one place that it's more or less centered. In the end, the whole thing was coming out too big. Rip #2.

The third attempt was the same as the second but with fewer stitches cast on. My math had told me that I needed to decrease every three rows, with a decrease of 4 stitches being about an inch in length. About 3" down, I realized that this was total crap. It was about 6 rows for a half inch, not 3. Bad math. Rip #3.

For the final installment, I figured that since I was starting over after the ribbing anyway, I'd finally change to a 4x2 ribbing so that I'd have a center to do single decreases around, more similar to a top-down version of Grumperina's decreases. But I'm decreasing at the center stitches instead of one away. So while she has a 2-stitch purl ridge all the way down the back of her sock, which I wasn't sure I wanted, I'm ending up with Vs down the middle of mine. Now I'm still not sure I'm happy with it. For now, I'm going to keep it. No one will notice wonky calf shaping at the top of man socks, right? It'll always be beneath his pant cuffs, it's not like guys ever wear socks like this with shorts or anything.

Gah.