The second time around

Originally uploaded by Asplund

I'm taking liberties with Marianne Isager's design "Honey" from her book Classic Knits, original Danish title Strik à la carte.

Apart from making a vest instead of a cardigan, I've added repeats to the garter stitch bottom border (three instead of one) and made the edging significantly narrower. Now, I love her design, I just like experimenting to see what happens too!

However, I didn't quite like my first version to the left - which is what often happens when I experiment. The bottom border is too similar to the main pattern in stocking stitch, and I wanted the two sections to look slightly more different but still blend. Therefore, I added two rows of purple in the version to the right. Not an enormous change, but all the same I like it a lot better.

Edited to add:

Heureka! I just found my tape measure, which has been missing for a couple of days.

This must have seemed like a good place to keep it safe at the time, but apparently it was a little bit too good.

A vest for a vest: finished

A vest for a vest
Originally uploaded by Asplund

I envy my fingers – unlike me they remember things so well! Once I got started with the pattern it was almost like typing, and a favourite movie helped making this a quick knit: Woody Allen's Match Point is so compelling (even the the third time) I knitted faster than usual.

Short notes about the construction:

1. Knitted in one piece until I reached the armholes, then divided into three sections.
2. Armholes shaped using short rows.
3. Back and front joined using a three-needle bind-off and knitting a neck gusset (which I learnt from Alice Starmore's Fishermen's Sweaters). Picture here.
4. Stitches picked up around the armholes for a garter-stitch edging.
5. I picked up stitches along front; then knitted gusset stitches, back stitches and gusset stitches; then picked up stitches along other front. All stitches knitted back and forth for garter stitch edging.

My mother seems pleased with how her new vest turned out!

A vest for a vest

A vest for a vest
Originally uploaded by Asplund

Feeling a bit cold this morning I borrowed a grey vest that I knitted for my mother some five years ago and which is too big for her. The length is fine and she likes wearing it, but it gives her "wings".

Guess what? It turns out to be exactly my size, so we've decided I'll knit her a new one. There is enough of some beautiful heathery blue wool from Morjärv that's been in my stash for quite a while, waiting patiently for the right project.

As the grey vest is pre-Ravelry I don't have any notes – or I don't know where they are and probably wouldn't recognize them if they turned up – and that wool is a lot thicker, my challenges for this project are:

1) reconstructing the two patterns, since I don't own the book where I found them (Vogue Dictionary of Knitting Stitches by Anne Matthews);
2) figuring out where and how often to increase to get them to blend (the ribbing and main pattern repeats consist of different number of stitches);
3) knit a different size with different, thinner wool and a different gauge – and place the pattern so it becomes symmetrical;
4) last but not least, get the size right this time!

In addition, I'm knitting this vest in one piece instead of three. Why? To try it! Haven't knitted an open vest that way before.

Wearing and studying the grey vest takes me back to the time when I was knitting it. It was summer and I was staying at a colleague's house while she and her husband were away. They have a wonderful little garden where I spent many hours knitting, reading and picking berries. Strawberries, gooseberries, red and black currants, blueberries... Heaven.

Vests galore

WIP: Square dance vest
Originally uploaded by Asplund

I seem to be on a vest high this month: one frogged, one finished and one back into favour. I knitted this vest early this year, but was unhappy with the shoulder joins and the neck when I tried it on. It didn't look like what I had in mind, and it wasn't as comfortable as I wished (neck not low enough). Three-needle bind-off combined with neck gussets didn't work this time, unfortunately. (Done it before: here and here.)

Since then I've been thinking saddle shoulders would be the best solution, but I wasn't sure what how they should look. What's more, I wanted to try to knit them in place instead of sewing (done here) to learn something new, and I probably wasn't up to all these things at once – then.

The straps are 15 stitches wide and I knit them back and forth, knitting them together with back and front pieces. (Somehow similar to knitting a sock heel.) There are a couple of rows knitted with waste yarn first: I'm going to remove these and pick up the stitches to be part of the neck band. The strap pattern echoes a chain pattern I've knitted instead of side seams.

The vest is knitted on circular needles with steeks for armholes and is my own design. I decided to call it a Square Dance vest; dance for the small dots that surround many squares. First they were everywhere, but that just looked messy, like overly decorated gingerbread. Now they're only in every other section, a simple "rhythm" but definitely an improvement in my opinon. Perhaps it still resembles gingerbread, though – but I like gingerbread, so that's fine with me.

Here's the odd man out, the vest that is finished. It is my own design, the two pieces knitted back and forth and shoulders grafted. I couldn't resist this yarn when I spotted these colours (a not uncommon phenomenon) and tried to come up with a varied strip sequence where I wouldn't have to cut the yarns all the time. It worked!

I liked the wrong side of my swatch, so it was promoted Right Side. There are vertical lines of knit stitches in the sides, partly for decoration, partly to improve the shape. I do like circual knitting, but can't help thinking my sweaters without side seams resemble barrels unless I knit, say, a cable where the seam would have been.

Who knows, this might be a good time to do something about the unfinished blue vest that's been hibernating for two years.