Adding Prep to the Wardrobe

Look I have a finished object to show you! I actually finished quite some time ago, but I only recently had some decent pictures taken of it.

"I should wear that green vest I made today," I thought. "Hmm, I don't have pictures for Ravelry of it."
"Terri! Terri where are you?" I shout as if our two bedroom apartment is some gigantic field which needs shouting over. "Come take pictures of me!" I say brandishing the camera.

This vest came about under uncertain circumstances. Several years ago I owned a bright blue polar fleece vest. I enjoy bright colors and the brightness of that blue added some cheer to the contents of my wardrobe. However, I rarely wore the vest and in one of my recent moves I decided to donate it instead of take it with me.

Regarding my history with the aforementioned vest, why would I then spend many hours making another vest which might prove just as difficult to fit into my wardrobe? I must be very very silly, or just a knitter with yarn and a neat pattern, or maybe both.

I made my dad a sweater a couple of years ago and bought an excess of yarn that I would need. After the sweater was finished I had several balls of Cascade 220 in a lovely dark heather green sitting in my stash. I started fishing around for a pattern that called for the amount of yarn I had left because I'm trying to get my stash under some sort of control.

The pattern for this vest is called Honeycomb and is freeing available from Knitty. Two things helped me choose this pattern over some others I was considering. It called for the yardage I had left and the way it was marketed got me. Preppy you say? Well I could use a little prep in my wardrobe. Becoming a teacher you say? Well that's what I'm going to be very soon. Maybe this vest was right for me.

Don't you just adore those books?

I love the smell of old books.

I enjoyed knitting this vest because it became class knitting. I knit all the time in my classes, but the pattern can't be too complicated or I start paying more attention to my knitting than I do to class. Even though I read in other people's Ravelry pages about the vest I didn't believe them that the cable row took a while. Well, compared to the other ribbing or just knit rows they did take a while! Good thing I like cabling without a needle or I would have hated this vest.

I added a few rows in the waist to make it a little longer. I ended up having just enough yarn to only do five rows of ribbing in the neckline and arm holes instead of the eight called for. Whew! Towards the end I actually had all three areas of ribbing on the needles trying to figure out how much yarn I had left and if I could get away with another row around all three.

I am very pleased with the result and even more pleased that I actually wear it!