As mentioned in this week’s Sunday’s Sassy Stitch and Spin I made the Shawl Collar Vest by Jennifer Miller. It’s a free pattern on Ravelry, and it’s a great pattern, too. I enjoyed making the vest and it’s quickly become my new favorite around the house item.
The Yarn
I rarely make heavier weight yarns. I enjoy working with sport and dk weight yarns the best, and frankly I enjoy size five to seven needles the best. They’re the perfect size in my hands. But occasionally I’ll do a bulky or heavy aran weight yarn. That’s exactly what I made one afternoon.
I had texel wool laying around in my studio. It’s a short staple, maybe two inches, and it was heavy on the vm. I ran it through the picker, and then carded it up on my hand carders. I spun it slubby and squishy and then did a traditional three ply.
I also dyed it, and didn’t like the color. So, back into the dye pot with rit navy blue and a few tightly tied places to preserve the pink it went. It’s not exactly like I wanted, but it’s a wearable color on me now.
This was another fleece most people would trash, and now I have a comfortable bed jacket! A little work goes a long way with a lower grade fleece.
The Pattern
The pattern is actually the exciting part of this project for me. I’ve never knitted a sweater or garment other than shawls, hats, scarves, socks, and gloves. There’s something about fit, sleeves, collars, etc that intimidates me. Nevermind I can knit up Estonian lace like nobody’s business, a collar makes me think twice. When I saw this pattern I thought, “this is exactly what I need”.
The pattern is incredibly simple. It’s all worked in ribbing, and the sizing is extremely flexible. It starts out flat to create the yolk and arm holes and then joins up into knitting ribbing in the round. All together it took maybe four hours.
I did run into one snag that’s completely on me. I did my typical backwards loop cast on. When it came to picking up stitches and keeping the ribbing lined up I ended up with a line on the inside. I think if I had gone with a long tail cast on it would have worked out better. Oh well, next time. There will definitely be a next time. I’ll also make my vest longer next time. I didn’t have enough yarn to get a long line like I typically wear. But those are my issues, and part of the learning curve.
Lessons
As knitters we sometimes get into ruts. Oh, look, another shawl, just like the five others not being worn. Sometimes we just need to do something different, get out of the comfort zone, and be daring. Okay, we just need a new pattern that’s not too difficult. For me, this was that pattern.
This experience has also given me a jumping off point to explore other sweater and vest patterns. I’m seriously considering a traditional pull over sweater as a February 2018 project.
Chunky yarn can be fun. There was something intensely gratifying about seeing so much progress in so little time. I was watching McLeod’s Daughters while knitting this, so I was knitting casually. I’ll definitely be looking to balance out my projects portfolio with these sorts of patterns in 2018.
Have a marvelous week!
In all you do, craft no harm
Moriah
P.S. I’m in no way associated with Jennifer Miller. I just REALLY enjoyed knitting this pattern!
Kind Fibers 