As the sun sets on this weekend, we’re enjoying some quiet time at home. We went into town to pick up groceries that we’ve not had time to do since we’ve been traveling and living around a couple of crazy winter storms. But today we got it done and we can eat for a week or two before we have to grocery shop again. I pulled some bananas out of the freezer as I was organizing and will make some banana nut muffins in the morning and maybe some granola, too. You know it’s been a crazy time when we run out of granola!
My Nancy’s Vest is blocked. I’m really excited to be able to wear this vest this week when I go to work. It’s been an interesting challenge because it looks so simple but it has a few techniques that were new and several directions at once so I needed to pay close attention. Despite being warned, I didn’t read ahead in the pattern and neglected to stop and divide for the front and back pieces (and I had to frog back 3 inches of stockinette) and there were a couple of places where I didn’t decrease on the front parts. Fortunately I was paying closer attention and didn’t have to frog back quite so far.
Regardless, I really enjoyed the process and I loved learning a couple of new tricks. The button bands were knit as you go as part of the garment and that was fun. I am eager to see how the button holes work. I used the ones in the pattern but I wasn’t sure about them. I also liked the cabled decreases, they make for nearly invisible shaping on the body of the vest.
When I got to seaming the shoulders, I had the back bound off and live stitches on the front left and right. The directions said to graft them together. This made my head spin and there was no tutorial for doing this. I’ve grafted plenty of stitches together when there are live stitches on both sides but this isn’t the case here. And THEN she offered an option of a 3 needle bind off. Again, I’ve done a lot of these but they entail having live stitches on the two sides being knitted together and bound off. So, I thought about it for a few minutes and decided to unpick the bound off back stitches and return them to the needles and then I did a three needle bind off at the first shoulder, bound off the stitches across the back of the neck and did a three-needle bind off at the second shoulder. It seems to have worked and it will add some structure to the shoulder.
The blocking happens now, before the finishing of the back of the collar. I will have to add a little bit of length to the collar pieces before grafting them together and attaching them to the back of the neck. That’s the only seaming in the whole garment! I’ll weave in the ends and then crochet around a couple of spots and it’ll be finished and ready to wear.
On Friday I hope my friend/co-worker and I will both be wearing our Nancy’s Vests at work. We had our own little KAL that we didn’t plan but kind of just happened. It’s funny that we are both finishing at about the same time considering.
I’m going to give myself a bit of a break from finishing until my vest dries and tonight I’m going to knit up a pair of fingerless mitts with a hank of deeply stashed Malabrigo Rios. I don’t know what the colorway is because the label appears to have left the building, but it’s a pretty blue colorway. These will knit up quickly and will be satisfying after the longer projects. After that, I’ll be frogging back one sleeve on my Norwegian sweater that is SO close to being done. I’m going to attempt to decrease more rapidly and then knit the colorwork and cuff (and then try to copy what I did on the first sleeve with the second one. That’s all I have left to do and that sweater will also be finished. I sure do hope after all this that I will be able to wear the sweater. My allergies seem to be getting worse with some wool. I hope the natural wools will be exempt from allergies. I can wear Patagonia Organic Merino and I hope this Norwegian wool will be free of whatever makes me sneeze!
Gone knitting.
Final pictures will be posted on my Instagram feed @queenbeeknits and lindar on my Ravelry project page.