pepperknit

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!