Prudence Vest

I started this project on April 26.  I was getting close to finishing the Clematis Pullover and needed another easy knit for my everyday bag.  I was also going on travel the first week in May and needed a good airplane project.  The pattern is from Berroco's Free Pattern Pure Merino Collection 1.  This booklet has 10 patterns knit in Berroco's Pure Merino.  There were two variations of this vest, one with cables, and this one, which is labeled Prudence Easy.  I bought the yarn at Elann.  I have been shopping at Elann for a while now.  You can sign up to get snips or mini-skeins of yarn.  The snips mailings have all the colorways of the featured yarns for that mailing taped to a card.  The mini-skeins mailings have, as the name implies, mini-skeins (one each) of the featured yarns.  The other cool thing about the snips and mini-skein mailings is that when you purchase the subscription you get an equivalent amount in vouchers for the store.  They also give you loyalty credits.  The yarns are sold at a great discount, but sometimes the available colors are limited.  Often they have free pattern offers with the yarn, which is how I got the pattern booklet that I used for this project.  The emails they send out to announce the featured yarns are very nicely put together, and make ordering so easy.

The yarn is Berroco Pure Merino, an Aran weight, in Aubergine.  The pattern called for 11 balls for the smallest size, I used a little less than 9.  The directions are for knitting front and back separately, I modified it to knit in the round.  The pattern directions had only a single number for the stitches to be picked up around the neck and armholes, which really didn't make sense to me as the sizes go from 36" to 52".  Granted, the length only goes from 26" to 27.5", but still.  I picked up one stitch per row instead and just made sure that the number of stitches I ended up with was divisible by 4 so the k2, p2 ribbing would work. I did increase 2 stitches on the back of the neck and in the underarms.  I did not bind off any of those stitches, just put them on holders until they were needed.  I also did short row shaping for the shoulders, and a three needle bind-off.