A Bluestocking Knits

I was going to do an in-progress post on this, then I turned around and it was done.  It's taken me longer to get the photos than to knit the thing!

It isn't really very often that I can wear handknits here in Southern California, other than socks of course — so I have lots of scarves and shawls.  It occurred to me recently, in one of those "duh" moments, that I should have more slipovers and vests in my wardrobe.  No, I shall call it "serendipity" instead — much nicer — since I was browsing some recent issues of Knitty that I hadn't seen, and was looking straight at the Sinnesfrid vest by Madeleine Nilsson when I thought, "well, yeah, vests –"  I had already had my eye on Wendy Barnard's Splash vest for a while, and so I bought the yarn for both the next day.

The yarn is 3 skeins of Malabrigo Rios in 412 "Teal Feather".  This is a lovely color, though not really one that I would have chosen to actually wear, being drawn to less saturated colors, I guess — but there wasn't much choice at Jimmy Beans as the yarn seems in short supply, and I can understand that, as it is very pleasant to knit with indeed.  (Even Laura, not especially fond of handknits, said as she was helping me wind a skein, "This is nice yarn.")  It knits up beautifully, very even, with just a gentle color variation throughout the fabric.  There were knots in every skein — one had two knots and a rather indifferent splice, all within an arm's-length of each other — but other than that I would be happy to use it again.

The pattern is quite easy to follow, and I had only two slight hiccups as it went along — one was just past the point where you have cast on for the armholes, and the waffly-rib stitch doesn't quite line up as it has been doing.  This is all right, since even though it doesn't line up, after a few more rows you can't really tell.  Just don't look down, and you'll be fine.  The other part was also to do with the waffle-rib not lining up, just towards the end of the waist shaping. Just into the bottom border you increase a few more stitches, but instead of working a "p2, sl m, k2" as Row 2 has you do to accommodate the increases into the waffle-rib, I just did "p1, k1, p1, k1" and thought it looked a little less obvious.  A very minor cavil, certainly. 

I did choose to sew the front together, since I was pretty sure that with my figure and the negative ease I wanted with this vest, the button closure would pull rather unattractively.  The buttons are just plain La Mode mother-of-pearl buttons (#1651).

I am astonished and delighted that in fact I did not take it off after the "photo shoot" this afternoon, since it was chilly enough to appreciate the wool.  Autumn is coming at last!