The Knitting YAFGE

[firecat]

I've been working with the book The Knitting Experience: The Knit Stitch by Sally Melville. I decided to knit the Asymmetrical Vest, but since several of my friends whom I made look at the book didn't like the asymmetry, I fiddled the pattern so it would be symmetrical. I also wanted the vest to be 33 inches long instead of 24 inches long, and the way the pattern was described made it easy to change the length by adding stitches.

I knitted it in 2 colors of Lion Brand Homespun (since I decided to add some stripes to it).

When I finished it, it came out much longer than I expected and also less wide. I know my swatch gauge was off about 1/4" in one direction, but I thought it was the direction that would add width, not length. I guess I was wrong. I wouldn't be able to wear it myself without adding a front panel to it. So I had my sweetie kyubi model it for some photos. It fit her very well, and I guess she fell in love with it, because she wore it for the rest of the night. So once I have the buttons sewn on (in the photos, the things that look like buttons are stitch markers on the buttonholes), I'll be giving it to her.


Vest front. (kyubi, I'm sorry I chopped off your head!) It does look a bit asymmetrical, but that's just because of how it is hanging.



Vest back.




(Despite the subject of the post, I'm delighted that the vest decided to belong to kyubi! I'm just hoping I can get the hang of making a garment to the expected size before long...)

Comments

[firecat]

I gather that many yarn addicts eventually graduate to "the hard stuff" like spinning yarn, yes. I haven't gotten there yet, but I probably will someday. I did enjoy looking at and handling the fleeces at the Mendocino County Wool & Fiber Festival last year. In this post is a post including a photo of the prize-winning fleece sitting in its giant silver cup.

Some wool/fiber festivals have contests called "sheep to shawl" where teams of people have some ridiculously small number of hours to shear a sheep, clean and card the wool, spin the wool, and then turn it into a finished garment.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

But what would you do with the sheep in the meantime? ;)

[firecat]

There's that...

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I have some very nice roti recipes...

[firecat]

Heh. But it can't produce any more wool then.

sheep to shawl

[jillzilla.livejournal.com]

It's funny to run into this conversation here, because I was just talking about sheep-to-sweater or sheep-to-shawl contests with some friends a mere 48 hours ago. One person commented on how wool was a renewable resource, and contrasted this with a hypothetical "cow to couch" competition.

I pointed out that the cow to couch competition would also have to be a barbeque.

Re: sheep to shawl

[firecat]

Heh! Doesn't leather take a long time to tan? It might be worse than watching paint dry.