Draped Vest - take 2 - Left Front Done

I managed to get a fair bit of knitting done this week during telecons.  I probably would have finished this last night, but this past Tuesday I pulled out this project only to discover that I had not put in another ball of yarn and I was almost finished with the one that I was working with.  Calamity!  I ended up doodling jewelry designs instead, which actually wasn't a good idea as it requires far more brain cells than this kind of knitting.  On the other hand I do have some jewelry designs to explore this weekend.

When I was working on this last night (while watching Fistful of Dollars on TCM) I realized that I had made a mistake when I was knitting the first version of the left front.  For some reason I had only done the armhole decreases on right side rows, instead of both right and wrong side rows, resulting in 14 more rows than I should have had.  This got me thinking about my first attempt at this vest and wondering if I would have enough yarn to finish if I went back and fixed that mistake (I didn't frog the project, just bundled it in a bag).  So this morning I pulled out that first attemp, but after working with the Karabella Aurora 8 I just couldn't bring myself to work with the Naturally Vienna yarn.  It is scratchy, and the variegation hides the patterning of the stitches and the cable work, so I bundled it back into its bag and will toss it back onto a high shelf in my studio.The Karabella Aurora 8 is a wonderful yarn to work with, and comes in so many beautiful colors.  The picture is actually far more blue than it should be, the color is actually a deep purple.

I have been using my blocking mats for so long that I had sort of forgotten that I had another blocking board that was gridded, so I pulled it out this morning when I went to block this to make it easier to get the dimensions (the ones that I knew, anyway) correct.  This yarn is interesting.  It knits up into a denser fabric, cushy and textured, but when you wet block it the yarn really relaxes (I haven't tried steam blocking it yet, but I have another project waiting in the wings that will probably require that method).  Most of the effort of blocking is smooshing it back from a stretched out shape with the palm of my hand, and I noticed after I took the photo (photos are great for spotting imperfections in your blocking) that I had missed some spots, which I went back and fixed.

Pattern:  Naturally Vienna Draped Vest - FC 56
Yarn:  Karabella Aurora 8
Needles:  US 7 (4.5 mm)