Draped Vest - take 2 - Finished!

I finished the knitting on this last week, but didn't finish the assembly until last night.  I had to ravel some of the collar before I could attach it to the back.  The pattern called for 5.25 inches of the collar, but that was over an inch too long.  When I was attaching the collar I marked the center of the back neck, then sewed one side of the collar down, ripped back 11 rows until I was at the center and put those stitches back on a needle.  Then I ripped the other collar back the same amount and grafted the collars together.  After grafting I continued sewing the collar down.  This is an interesting construction because of the way the fronts are sewn to the back.

The stitch pattern ends up at right angles to each other between the front and the back.  When I was knitting the fronts I always attached new balls of yarn in the middle of a row rather than at the edge because the edge needed to look neat and finished.

I'm not sure that I like the view from the back, but the drape is good.  There is one other thing that I really like about the Karabella Aurora 8 yarn, it is always easy to find the start of the ball.  I had to practically turn the Naturally Vienna balls inside out to find the start, and I was not working from the center of the ball.  It was very frustrating.

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

Draped Vest - take 2 - Right Front Done

Getting the left front of this vest done inspired me to finish up the right front.  When I blocked this piece I did not let it soak for very long, so it didn't stretch out much.  After I pinned it out I laid the left front on top to make sure they matched.  I've already sewn the left front to the back, except for the neck band.

Before I blocked the right front I wanted to take this picture to show the effect that the blocking had on the piece.  Besides growing a little, you can hopefully see that after blocking the fabric drapes better, and seeing as how this pattern is called "Draped Vest" I thought that better drape was important.

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

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)

Draped Vest - take 2 - Back Done

I've been working on a couple of different projects, making progress but not finishing anything, but today I did finish up the back of the Draped Vest, for the second time.  The yarn is Karabella Aurora 8 in purple.  Blocking was a little tricky because it was easy to stretch it out too much and lose the texture.  It does not help that the pattern does not have a schematic, so I don't really know the finished dimensions, and the gauge was given in stockingette stitch, not the pattern stitch, so I can't even calculate what the dimensions should be.  I just pulled the edges out  and then mushed things around a bit until it looked okay.

Pattern:  Draped Vest by Naturally
Yarn:  Karabella Aurora 8
Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm)