squishy vesty

I finished the vest finally!

So easy-peasy, I'm almost embarrassed to post about it. Basically, you just knit a rectangle that's wide on the ends but narrow in the middle, like this:


The silly thing is that I cast on for this vest back in February. I knit the first wide end and the whole center portion in a few days. Then I got to the part was I was supposed to widen it again, and I put it in my knitting bag, where it has sat for 8 months waiting for the other end. Lame!

Here's how that happened (just so you can see inside the brain of a weirdo): I had to do a row full of increases to widen it, and the increases looked sloppy when performed as instructed, and so I spent a day or two deciding on a different way of doing it (only to end up doing it as directed, which is the irony...and let's not mention the fact the increases can pretty much disappear underneath a big shawl collar. Told ya'. Weirdo. The second thing that shoved it deep into the knitting bag was that I began to notice just how much this this was going to shed once it was going to be finished. Little grey fuzzies EVERYWHERE, and I had basically knit this up so I could wear it around with black yoga pants and a black t-shirt. Once I realized that would never happen, I banished it (completely not allowing for the possibility that I could wear it with white or grey. Weirdo.) And then when I finally was ready to pick it back up and finish it, it was summer and to hot for me to want to knit with bulky alpaca yarn (for the non-knitters, if you even got this far, alpaca is a very warm fiber).

Okay. Anyhow. So you knit a rectangle with flanges, and then you fold it up liek this:


You sew up the seams part way, and then it becomes this:

How do ya' like my fancy over the shoulder in the mirror technique?

So simple it's almost stupid to even talk about it. Told you so.

Here the details: Ravelry project page ~ pattern link here
Needles: US 11's
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Chunky, 5 skeins (used all but a few yards)
Started: Feb 24th
Finished: Oct 27th ...hahahaha (real knitting time less than a week)
Mods: on the narrow portion, I did a slip stitch edge so that the armholes would have a nice finish to them
Funny story: I was over at MissyB's yesterday for about an hour and we were knitting and chatting, and I was working on the last few rows of the vest. I wanted to make sure to do the same number of rows on the last wide end as I had on the first wide end, so I was using a row counter like this one, which of course her toddler found intriguing. He picked it up, and she said, "Uh oh..." and I said, "No worries. I know where I am." (famous last words) He ran off with it to play for awhile. I only had a couple more rows to go, so it was no problem at all. This morning I set to binding off and then seaming it up, and funny....it wasn't lining up at all. Hmmm. I was 4 rows over (and with yarn this big, that's about an inch, inch and a half). Yay me. Had to undo the seam I had sewn, undo the bound off edge, take out the last few rounds, and refinish. HA.



So. I should have had the vest done early today and than had time to whip out the quickie thing for halloween, but nooooooooo.....I spent most of my knitting time for the day fixing my mess!

That's okay. I'm working on the new thing now while I watch our San Francisco Giants play game one of the world series!