MARG'S KNITTING PLACE

Interesting Vest Project

I came across this hand knit pattern online, purchased it and decided to do it on my bulky (Studio 155 and ribber) instead of the standard bed.  I chose Paton's Décor yarn for this little project.  I then worked with the hand knitting schematics that were given with the pattern to establish a pattern that should fit me!  My thoughts were this vest would be great for après ski or just something to wear over a turtle neck sweater or long sleeve blouse during these cold winter days.

I did my swatch.  The pattern called for a lovely centre panel on the front with cables - I wasn't in the mood for cables.  I wanted some texture but also flatter than cables so I went with a simple eyelet pattern that turned out very nice. 

Next I decided to have a 1 x 1 ribbing then a 6 x 6 rib for the body of the vest.   On the each edge I had 4 stitches (3 for half of the 6x6 rib and one for seaming).  This worked out beautifully as the 6 x 6 rib just flows all the way around the vest.

 

So here are the two pieces as they come off the machine.  They have been lightly steamed as I still wanted some elasticity in the ribbing.

 

 

Now this was the interesting part!  The seam was made up of cast off stitches on the short section and side edge stitches on the triangle shaped part.  I found by pinning I could easily ease the row edge knots and loops into the cast off stitches.

 

Yoke seaming is now done with the opening rolled back to create a collar shaping.  It does tend to look like someone has very round shoulders.  The way it fits the shaping forms over the curve of the shoulder and seems to take that triangle shaping out allowing the fabric to sit on the shoulders nicely.

 

The side seams are now done - really very little sewing on this one!  The space between the blue yarn markers are the armhole openings.  I don't think I will do anything further at the sleeve openings as this is a very casual vest.  The three columns on the edge seems to be enough.

 

 

Here is the back of the vest

 

I changed the pattern quite a bit in that I wanted ribbing on the bottom and a different rib throughout the body and of course that centre panel but then that is what we are all about isn't it.  Experimenting all the time with new textures and the look of the fabric.  I do love the vertical ribs on the main body of the vest and the only horizontal section is at the top front yoke area only.  Especially nice for my mature figure.

 

 

Now I am deciding if I would want to actually add sleeves to this - why not....  I could work with this as a drop shoulder sweater if I wanted sleeves and put them in before I sew up the side seams.  May do that on the next one!

 

If you are interested in the pattern you can find it at http://www.berroco.com/patterns/aquari