Third Time's a Charm

At least, I hope the third time is a charm. I'm going to have the entire Aleita Shell pattern memorized by the time I'm finished with this vest. Between the initial false start & the sizing adjustments & my latest mistake, I'll have done as much knitting on this vest as I would have on a full-sized long-sleeved sweater.

As evidenced by these pictures, I thought I was making great progress. However, it turns out it’s not a good idea to glance at the instructions once & then not bring the pattern with you when KIP’ing. That's 4 inches into the top section of decreasing every FOURTH row instead of every THIRD row. Oops! Back to frogging.

Originally I thought I'd pick the stitches back up on the row after the first decreases, so as to re-knit as little as possible. However, I tried the sweater on again after removing the needles for this latest batch of frogging, & discovered that I really needed another inch of stockinette between the smallest part of the waist & the start of the reverse stockinette/neck division part. Perhaps the latest problem was a blessing in disguise, as otherwise I wouldn't have realized I wanted another inch in the stockinette section until I was either much further along, or perhaps even finished with the vest.

That decision meant frogging back even further, not being able to save the fiddly rows where the neck divides, & more boring stockinette in the round. I think I’ll be happier with the end result this way, though.





It's amazing the difference between decreasing every 3rd row & decreasing every 4th. One good thing about it is that the number of stitches per row decreases faster, which makes for less knitting.
At least re-doing the neck division was much easier & faster the third time around, since I already figured out the directions on how to do it.
Now that I'm back on track, I still hope to finish this before the end of "Vest-uary".

Saturday Sky, February 21st, 2009

We woke up to grey skies & a dusting of snow coming down here this morning. The sun is out now, & the roads didn't have anything stick to them. It was just enough snow to look pretty.

The geese have left the pond & shaken the snow off their backs. They certainly look much prettier in this picture than when they are honking around my backyard.

Works In Progress Wednesday

I have the same things on my needles as I did two weeks ago, so there's nothing new for What's on My Needles. I have made progress, but haven't had much chance for pictures. We're more than half-way through Vest-uary, & all I have to show for it is 3 half-finished vests.

I had to do some sizing adjustments on my Aleita Shell, so I've been doing some frogging & re-knitting. I'm reached the neckline division again, though, & am now closing in on the armholes.

The red & blue is the Shawl Collar Vest by Amanda Berka in Elizabeth Austen "Andes" wool from Chris' Needlecraft. The pattern is doing a reasonable job of breaking up the colors. Because the piece is folded & sewn together, I'll also avoid the dreaded vertical lines across my front, so I'm continueing with this experiment.

These are the possible colors I'm considering for yoke section of the Vormorgun Létt-Lopavesti by Védís Jónsdóttir. I went into Chris' Needlecraft to find the grey yarns, since I knew they carry Plymouth Galway.

What's On My Needles This Wednesday

In honor of Vest-uary, my knitting so far this week has been all about the vests. I'm nearly finished with the plain stockinette section of my Aleita Shell. I'm not sure when I'll have enough free time to puzzle through the start of the divided section, though.
To that end, I've started another project to have plain stockinette available for KIP knitting. This is the start of Vormorgun Létt-Lopavesti , free pattern at Istex. I'm using Plymouth Galway Worsted from my stash of going-out-of-yarn-business wool, purchased at what used to be Knit & Hook. (It now only sells rug hooking supplies.)