Monday, October 12, 2009

It’s a Vest Thing

My very first experience with Brooks Farm was at the 2008 Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival. Before the Festival, I had never heard of Brooks Farm until I moved back to Pittsburgh and started working at Bloomin Yarns. Little did I know!

S2Svest.jpg

I wound up buying a sweater’s worth of Solana, but they had a really cool vest sample. So I bought two skeins of Riata and the pattern and was off to the races!

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Thanks to WeirdyPants for her help with the photo shoot. Another mix-and-match with three photographers for one vest. Overkill much?

The descriptively named “Side to Side Vest” is cast on with half the button band, knit the whole way around and finishes with the opposite half of the button band.

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I knit the bulk of this vest pretty quickly, then let it languish for over a year (yeah, shame on me!!!) needing just the armhole band and the neckband and the buttons to be attached.

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You can just barely see where I grafted the neckband to the button bands on the above picture. I found the buttons at Bloomin Yarns. The only bad part is that I’ve gotten larger since I started this project, so it’s currently too small to wear comfortably. But I’m working on shrinking, so hopefully by spring it will be wearable.

S2Sflat.jpg

Side-to-Side Vest

Pattern: Side-to-Side Vest by Carol H. Rhoades
Yarn/Color/Quantity: Brooks Farm Riata/Purple-Green-Brown/2 skeins (730 yards)
Source: Pattern and yarn purchased from Brooks Farm
Needles: US 7/4.5mm and US 8/5.0mm
Started: 6 April 200
Abandoned: 6 June 2008
Resumed: 27 September 2009
Finished: 30 September 2009

6 comments:

Sarah said...

Hey, I wondered what'd happened to this vest! So glad to see it finished -- it turned out wonderfully! I think you are the grafting queen. First the i-cord, then seed stitch. I bow down to your grafting abilities!

turtlegirl76 said...

Oooh pretty! Looks great!

Donna Lee said...

I think you can wear it if you don't button it (that's what I do with a vest from my formerly less bulky days). I like the side to side bit.

Jen said...

You are on FIRE with the finishing! The vest looks great!

Bezzie said...

Love the vest! Very nice!
I discovered Brooks Farm at a Texass "fiber festival." They were basically the only vendor!

Zonda said...

Lovely colorway! Love the vest! Yeah, just wear it open! Too pretty to let sit :)