Work-In-Progress Wednesday #9

Have I mentioned how much I love lace vests knit with bulky yarns? My first garment is coming along at a breakneck pace and I'm super excited about it! (Thanks for all the encouragement, by the way.) Here are all the things I've been working on lately.


First Garment:

Vally Yarns Berkshire Bulky, colorway Stone Blue

I have finished knitting the back and the left front of this vest. I should be able to finish the right front today and block all the pieces. Drying will probably take a while because the yarn is a very thick 85% wool 15% alpaca blend and it's been damp and dreary around here weatherwise. But then it's just seaming (eek!) and picking up stitches for a bottom edge and a front/neck edge. Guys, this thing is definitely going to be done by Rhinebeck. Woo!


Hall Pass:

Yarn from Old Sturbridge Village and leftover Mondegreen

The Fiasco needed an item that could be identified as his hall pass that the kids couldn't forge, so I tried my hand at some colorwork for him. My tension was too tight on the M swatch, if you look closely you can see the the green bits are raised up and the sides pull in because I didn't leave the floats of the yellow yarn long enough. Not good for a garment, but should be ok for this. I'm going to sew these pieces together, stuff them, and add an i-cord loop for a handle. I'd like to see a kid try to forge that!


Beautiful Briny Sea:

SG Bugga in Box Jellyfish and CY Bugga in Blue Ringed Octopus

This shawl is in that endless, anti-progress stage. No matter how much I knit, it doesn't seem to get any larger. That center spine needs to measure 15" before I can move on to the next bit and I still have about 3 inches to go. It doesn't help that I dropped a couple of stitches in one of the garter sections and still have to fix them. Delays!


Lillypad Take Two:

The Verdant Gryphon Bugga, colorway Yellow Fringe Doris

I'm at the heel of my second attempt at Lillypad socks... so of course I've stalled out. Heels take concentration and socks are my zone-out-knitting so that's a bad mix for me. I'll get right on these, though, after I finish my vest and the hall pass. Click on the image below to check out other WIPs!

Exciting Times

Guys, I have big news!


You excited?


You should be!

Valley Yarns Berkshire Bulky, colorway Stone Blue

I've started my first ever knitted piece of clothing! Well, I started a couple of sweaters long ago but never got very far. This one is going to be different. I'm ready to commit now. This one is The One, the Mr. Right of garments. The pattern is the Montague Bulky Lace Vest from New England Knits. As you can see, I'm taking it easy on my first foray into sweaterdom: bulky yarn, huge needles, interesting lace, minimal shaping, sleeveless. This avoids many of the possible procrastination pitfalls that would lead to sweater failure for me: too many stitches on the needle, the feeling of no progress being made, too much boring stockinette (for some reason I love garter but hate knitting stockinette), too many pieces to deal with in the end. And I did everything I could to ensure success this time: I swatched, I compared the pattern schematic to a vest I already own to determine size, I started with the largest size and realized it was too big early on and fixed that, and I chose a style I think will be flattering for my body type. I think I can really do this thing!

I'm actually modifying it, too. If you do a search on Ravelry for the larger sizes you will see that the lace panels are very widely spread apart in a most unflattering way with huge expanses of reverse stockinette between them that I just did not find appealing. I liked the way the small size looked, its proportions, so I tried to preserve that in the way I'm knitting it. I added regular stockinette to either side and centered the lace panels better. I don't yet know if this well screw something up for me near the neck, but I looked through the pattern and tried to knit it in my head and didn't see anything major about how the various decreases interacted with the way the patterns lined up.

Here's hoping this sweater and I will live happily ever after! :)