Birthday Present

Vest Front
Originally uploaded by Disentangled.

I finally got a chance to take a picture of the sweater vest that I made my mom for her birthday in April. She had told me that was what she wanted me to make her, but I had trouble getting inspired. So, I had her sit down with me a pick out a pattern from the internet. She also helped me pick out the yarn.

The pattern she ended up deciding on was the Knitted Denim Vest from Lion Brand. The yarn that the pattern calls for is their chunky generic acrylic yarn. While I appreciate the usefulness of acrylic, I see no point in making a piece of clothing out of the super cheap stuff. So, I substituted their Wool-Ease Chunky in Bay Harbor - which ended up looking like denim blue (when we picked it out on the internet we thought it might be a little green). This worked out great because the gauge was the same! So, I could follow the pattern without having to change anything - I think a first for me as well.

Fair warning, though: The pattern is rated "Easy," but the second side is a little tricky. They say to simply reverse all shaping, but because there is a boarder along the center where the two sides meet, it isn't as simple as that. I had to get help from my sister-in-law and then rewrite the whole side, so that I could follow the proper shaping. Doable, but I had to put my needles down for an afternoon to accomplish it.

The yarn knitted up nicely and fairly even. It did pull a little at the front panel corners, but I blocked it and it came out ok. I think it would have blocked better if there was more wool content in the yarn, but I'll take what I can get.

Also, something I forgot about until I took this picture - my mom did a bit of modeling pre-me. One of the things she did was model for knitting and crochet pattern covers. She said that taking that picture reminded her of shot she did one time for a top where she had to gaze out a window. Pretty cool - I'll have to see if she can dig out those old covers. I remember seeing them when I was a kid, so I know she has them someplace...