pepperknit

Back in Vestvember, I got very zealous and started three vests. Two I finished during the month of November, but as the third was a Christmas present for Dad, I moved a bit slower on it. I brought it with me to Norway and worked on it in plain sight of the recipient :)

I finished up the knitting on Wednesday in the evening and eagerly soaked it to get it fully blocked. Since I was using yarn reclaimed from an old WIP, it was all blumpy and messy looking. I was anxious to get it dry right away, so I ran it through mom’s dryer on “no heat” for 30 minutes. But after 30 minutes nothing was happening, so we changed the cycle to “warm” for 20. The yarn was Cascade 220 Superwash bought a long time ago, so I figured it would do it good—superwash always grows so much and often benefits from some dryer time, right?

NO.

The damn thing felted up. Not, perhaps, as much as it could have—there’s still the lovely cable pattern visible—but it felted nonetheless. I shrieked and cried, and mom and i each grabbed one side of the sweater and pulled and pulled and pulled. We got it a bit longer.

I told dad he’d be squeezing into it come the 25th no matter what, though, and he did! We even got some tiny snowflakes falling for our photo shoot on the deck.

Dr. G’s Memory Vest (rav | pattern)
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash (though perhaps that is debatable)
Needles: US 8
Started: November 11
Finished: December 23
Notes: I only worked the pattern on the front, so I worked the back as a size x-small and the front as a size small. Honestly, the gauge was a bit open on 8s with this yarn (since Cascade isn’t really a true worsted weight), so the felting has resulted in a really great looking sweater. If only it fit better!

It’s a bit tight to get on and off at the neck, and the armholes are on the tight side; we may just cut them open to allow for some room. It’s snugger than intended but the fact that it still fits has me concerned that the unfelted version might have been big anyway! Honestly, given how nice the fabric looks I’d recommend making a size or two larger and felting it intentionally.

It’s best reserved for only the coldest of winter days here in Norway, anyway. But I think that’s every day.

I’m not sure if I believed that it was going to work, despite all assurances that it would.

When people told me it was no sweat—really—to take scissors to my knitting, I nodded and shrugged like I was well versed in this technique and had no concern.

But the truth is, I’d done a whole lot of reading about steeking, understood the theory and concept thoroughly, and seen loads of friends do it, but I hadn’t yet done it, I was scared out of my mind.

But I dove into the Deep-V Argyle Vest anyway.

And guys, it is no sweat—really—to take scissors to your very feltable 100% wool sweater.

I’m lucky, though: JulieFrick let me give it a whirl first on the adorable Grows Like a Weeds that she knit for her boys.

But back to my knitting—that’s why you’re here, right? My totally perfect argyle vest? The one that’s super warm and yet still comfortable and I am totally in love with?

Deep-V Argyle Vest (pattern | my rav page)
Yarn: Ella Rae Classic, in blue and gray (3 balls of blue and 2 of gray)
Needles: US Size 4. I bought Hiya Hiya steels, and they were nice! Cheap, and they come with a cute locking stitch marker
Started: November 9 (swatching), started knitting for reals on November 12
Finished: The knitting was done on November 18. This is the first time I’ve taken notice of the fact that I actually knit the colorwork part in just 6 days. Dang. I finally got around to steeking on November 21, and it was blocked and dry on November 29. (Basically, I took forever to finish the finishing.)

Notes: So, the pattern is the Deep-V Argyle but I honestly think a super-deep-v looks, well, silly on most people, especially those like me who are not overly well endowed. But what’s great about this pattern is that the entire thing is charted, so you can just redraw your own outline and go from there. So that’s what I did, and in the end I probably did something that was closest to the 36″ size, but I cut the number of rows below the waist shaping and cut out rows in the armholes, too (my row gauge was slightly off). In some ways I didn’t knit the pattern at all—it’s as if I took the argyle chart and just drew my own sweater on it! The detailed and reassuring information in the pattern about steeking was really helpful, though.

And it was no sweat, I swear.

Vestvember is still in full swing here, never fear—just because I finished my first vest doesn’t mean I’m stopping!

I didn’t deliberately pick the color because of its warm honey tones, but boy does it fit for this pattern! The yarn was leftover from my Mirage, and this was a great stashbusting vest.

Honeycomb Vest (Knitty / Rav)
My project page
Started: Friday, October 30
Finished: Saturday, November 7
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool
Needles: US 4
Notes: I had some stupid weirdness with the “at the same time” directions for the front shoulders, and ended up with 1 too many stitches on both sides. At first I just decreased them away at the neck edge, but then I realized that this threw the pattern ever so slightly off, and it wouldn’t match up perfectly with the back. So I took it out and redid that.

I cabled without a cable needle but really wish I’d just done the “left cross” and “right cross” stitches, where you make a faux cable by working both stitches in a particular way. It would have been a lot faster. And if I’d done that I most definitely would have done the whole thing in the round; though mattress seaming two sides is not a big deal, it would have been really nice to have not had to think about that during the finishing.

One other word of advice for those making this: bind off in pattern. When I was redoing the front split I got lazy and just bound off in purl, and it made for a too-tall swath of knits on the right side. I considered duplicate stitching some purl bumps in later, but ultimately I just picked up for the neckline lower along the edge to hide it. I thought I could live with it, but it looked really awful. So just do it right from the get-go and learn from my lazy desire to finish quickly.

I’ve got 2 more vests I want to knit, so I’m not stopping anytime soon!

Early last week, my friend Christy posted a picture of her outfit that day, in which she wore her Bloom vest. It got into my head something awful and next thing I knew I was on Ravelry searching “vest.” Then Bertha tweeted something about looking at/considering Honeycomb. No, *I* am looking at/considering Honeycomb, I said! Clearly, vests had gotten into her head too.

Next thing we knew, Christy had coined the name Vestvember, I’d created the Ravelry and Flickr groups, and we’d worked our mind control on the masses on Twitter, who started suddenly wanting vests, too. Even people who don’t spend all hours of the day on Twitter saw it on Ravelry and it took over their brains, too. It’s viral, people, watch out.

125 other people caught the bug and are scheming for vests. This infection is more potent than Swine Flu. We’ve got plans for colorwork vests, cardigan vests, and still plenty of Honeycombs. I’m so overcome by the idea of vests right now, I think I’ll probably make two. It seems highly likely I’ll get through both in record time, too, as I cast on for my Honeycomb on Friday (yeah, yeah, before November, but Vestvember was in full swing as far as I was concerned), finished the ribbing that night, and now I’m more than halfway up the back. I keep reminding myself: There’s only a front left to go!