Entries categorized as ‘vests’
Pattern: Basic Vest from Ann Budd’s Handy Book of Patterns
Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport in Stone and Buddy Blue
Needles: US5
Vest number two complete. I like this one better probably because I love this yarn so much. I think this is such a great yarn – Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport. Cheap in price. High in quality. Tons of great colors. Plus I love knitting things at a smaller gauge – they feel like grown up knits as opposed to knitting something in a worsted weight. Silly, but there is it. The stripes are not as good as the last vest, but he wanted one color stripes.
I was a little more thoughtful about the ribbing at the neck. I left two stockinette stitches at the base of the V and did the decreases on either side of these two stitches. I think it came out cleaner. The only thing I would have done different is kept these two stitches from the knitting below live instead of picking up new stitches.
Let me just say, for both sets of pictures for the vests bribery was involved. There may have been an exchange of a cookie for pleasant picture taking. Somehow I don’t think that these knits will see a lot of action beyond the school photo requirement. Too bad. I think they look so freaking adorable in these vests. Along the lines of little boys when they wear tuxes in weddings and such.
Categories: Da boys · finished object · vests
Pattern: Basic V-neck vest from Ann Budd’s Handy Book of Patterns
Yarn: Cascade 220 in two greens and a bit of yellow
Needles: US8
I am on a quest for vests. Last year I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t the boys be so handsome in sweater vests for their school pictures?” This year I thought to myself, “I need to make that happen THIS year or it will never happen because fall is kind of busy for teachers.” So, here is the first of two vests.
Knit at 5 sts/inch for a kiddo size 6-8. I decreased the number of stitches by 15% for the bottom ribbing. The body was knit in the round up to the armholes and then I knit back and forth and joined at the shoulders with a three needle bind-off. The ribbing in the V-neck is wonky. I don’t know how to do it properly, all I know is the instructions in the book are not good for V-necks. There is more to the decreasing at the point to make it look better, and I thought I had it licked but looking at these photos makes me feel otherwise.
The stripes oh-my-gosh the stripes. I love the end product, but I was saying foul things about the two-colored stripes as I was weaving in ends. My weaving in has gotten better over the years, but I still think they are not overly invisible now couple that with having several in one spot *sigh*. Let’s just say don’t get to close or you can really tell how many ends there are.
Speaking of getting too close – see the mark of brotherly love? Apparently, Muskrat and Bubba got in it the other night. Something about not wanting to talk about the super bomber and the other wanting to talk about biplanes. I don’t know. All I know if he has a wicked bad bruise and scratch marks down his face. I will look back on the photos as “The Time when Muskrat could not use his Words.”
Categories: Da boys · finished object · vests
Pattern: Skye Tweed Vest by Kathy Zimmerman in an old IK
Yarn: Kathmandu Aran in a nice grey
Needles: US 7 and 8
What can I say. I loved knitting this. Cables were interesting but not overly intricate. The yarn is divine. I love the end product, and it doesn’t look AWFUL on me. I will definitely wear it, but not when I am trying to impress anyone. It will be more of a I-am-cold-I want-to-be-comfy wear. Couple of things I changed to make it more feminine. The neck has a deeper V than the pattern called for. This is the clincher. I had my husband try it on just after I seamed it up and he declared it “too girly” with the deep V-neck. Okay.
The other change I made was no ribbing around the armhole. When I tried on the vest after seaming it up I loved it. I knit all the various ribbing around the neck and armholes and modeled the end product, at which point Terry declared I look like at football player in the shoulders. I couldn’t argue with him. So, I ripped out the ribbing and put in a very small roll of stockinette to give it a finished edge while having the shoulders stay more narrow.
In retrospect, I wish I had shaped the shoulders with short rows and did a three needle bind-o. I have done this before, but I couldn’t make my mind wrap around the short rows (no pun intended that only a knitter could understand) and the cabling all at once. My seaming leaves something to be desired. I also wish I had *sheepish look downward* put in some waist shaping. There are plenty of stitches in the sides to do great shaping, and I don’t think it would have messed with the cables.
Phew. It feels good to knit a sweater for myself. So good in fact, I cast-on a Mr.Greenjeans for myself. Selfish, selfish.
Hey, my friend Jessie who is traveling all over the country went to a very cool yarn mill in
Bozeman, Montana. Go check out
what she saw.
Categories: finished object · vests
I don’t think I am alone when I say this, there are just some days when you feel smarter. Yesterday was one of those days for me. I was at the library cheerfully knitting, very determined to finish the back of my vest. I was binding off and shaping shoulders when I noticed a disaster – I had zigged on a cable when I should have kept zagging. See, on the middle panel of the cable pattern there are two sets of lines that move differently from all the other lines, and I managed to foul those up about seven rows back. Holy crap. Now I resisted the tempation to rip back those seven rows. No, I did what any fearless knitter would have done. I isolated those 15 stitches or so and dropped all 15 stitches down seven rows to my mistake and then picked them all back up in pattern (did you just feel all the non-knitters who read this blog leave? yeah, me too). It actually doesn’t look too bad, and I got to feel pretty friggin smart for a brief moment in time.
Here is the back basking in the sun with the cat, who quickly crawled onto it. Little softer than the hardwood.
Now yesterday I may have been smarter, but today I am as dumb as a rock. We went in to see about refinancing our house to pay for our new kitchen. Mortgages are a complete and utter mystery to me. The loan originator talks and talks and answers all of Terry’s questions because he is smart enough to ask questions. The things he is saying make it almost sound like we might not get our kitchen, so I just bluntly ask, “Are you telling me we can’t get *insert amount of kitchen here* from our refinance?” He makes some sucking in of air sound and hems and haws, and says, “It is doubtful and depends on the appraisal.” I manage to make it to the car before the tears well up. Turns out all that stuff they talk about on the radio like house values going down and banks not handing out as much as before IS ACTUALLY TRUE. Go figure. So, the kitchen remodel while not completely and totally out of the picture is looking less likely. I am quite sad. I am trying to keep things in perspective. I mean we aren’t losing our home. We have a steady income. We just don’t have a lovely kitchen with cherry cabinets that opens to our living room.
To drown my sorrows, I did what any other knitter would do. I cast on a new project. February Baby Sweater in this divine yarn for my son’s preschool teacher who is expecting her first baby in July. New babies are good things and babies in handknits are even better.
Categories: me · vests
This is the picture for the post where I tell you we had Bubba tested for sensory stuff at an OT on the advice of his kindergarten teacher but not to our surprise. Apparently, he is motor delayed not just a quirky kid who refuses to get on swings or climb ladders. Who knew? Thankfully no sensory integration issues. Now he is in karate to build his gross motor skills, and I am force feeding him handwriting in the evenings – both are things I SWORE I would never do. Parenting is all about eating crow, I tell ya.
This the picture for the post where I tell you about these booties I made for a friend of a friend. Bootie knitting is a sickness. Also, the boys loved it when I said, “bootie”. They often asked me what I was knitting even though they already knew and giggled each time I said it. It is a potty word at school.
This is the picture for the post where I tell you all about the vest. I am now up to the arm holes and have put it away. Not because I don’t love it. I do love it very much. I am smitten with the cables and probably spend more time petting it and admiring it than I do knitting it.
This is the picture for the post where I tell you I am going to Seattle at the end of March with my mom. Just me and my mom. It is going to be a good time and we have fun, fun things planned. Yes, there will yarn shopping, but mostly just hanging out with my mom. I was going to tell you how I dropped everything to knit Mr. Greenjeans with Eco Wool for my trip down as I suspect it will be rainy and chilly even at the end of March.
This brings us to this picture – the picture where I tell you F*CK all I have to completely rip out a week’s worth of knitting because I tried the bastard on and learned I knit a size too damn big. I should be happy – apparently the exercise and eating are going well despite Mini Egg season – but I am sad because there is no way on this green Earth I will finish a sweater in 17 days. Tonight I will work on the vest and love it.
Things have been busy. We have been house hunting. Then car hunting. Then deciding to refinance and remodel our house that we do love. I will post about interesting things as we get to them like cabinet choices. Does anyone have any thoughts at all about countertops for kitchens other than granite?
Categories: Da boys · finished object · sweaters · vests
So here I am ready to embark on the promise to knit more things for myself. Just before Christmas I purchased 10 balls of Queensland Kathmandu Aran (it is so divine and rugged) using a gift certificate and some of my own money. My plan is to knit Skye Tweed Vest from IK Spring 2005. I have lust for this vest for forever. See, I love vests. Fleece vests. Old man vests. Wool vests. I love them all. I blame my father. Now here is my dilemma. Every time I show people this vest I get the, “Uh-huh. That is fun” comment. Everyone – including the woman at the yarn store where I was about to drop $85. I recognize that there is no waist shaping, but I have no waist to shape AND it is not like I am going to wear it with a button up shirt. I will wear it with some fitted T-shirt, kind of the big shirt with tight pants theory. That said, I am willing to admit this is not the best pattern out there for me. Any other ideas of good vests or do you think this just might be a pretty funky vest for me to wear?
Categories: vests
I was a little more thoughtful about the ribbing at the neck. I left two stockinette stitches at the base of the V and did the decreases on either side of these two stitches. I think it came out cleaner. The only thing I would have done different is kept these two stitches from the knitting below live instead of picking up new stitches.
