A Vest for All Seasons

Here it is, blocked, dried, and modeled!

Pattern: All Season Vest by Noriko Ichikawa (Ravelry link), size 3 (41.5 in./105.5 cm bust circumference)
Yarn: Handspun from three HipStrings batts (fiber content unknown)
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm (for stockinette) and US 3/3.25 mm (for ribbing)
Started/Completed: February 16/February 27
Mods: none, other than working to a slightly different gauge (which gave me a smidge more positive ease) and picking up some extra stitches around the neck and armholes

If you think this knit up quickly, you're right; I guess not having to deal with sleeves makes a lot of difference when knitting a garment! I didn't even feel that I was particularly pushing myself to get this done quickly, so that should tell you that even with lots of short-row shaping and alternating skeins, this is a fast project.

I've really been enjoying knitting myself garments with handspun, and the two skeins that I used in this vest really begged to be something simple and without a lot of texture so that the yarn could shine. I know that the batts I spun to create the yarn were mostly/nearly all wool, and a lot of the pops of color are from bits of sari silk, but if I had any sort of tag indicating their composition, it's long gone. It really doesn't matter at this point -- I'm going to hand wash this vest in any case -- but it does leave me scratching my head a bit because I'm usually so good about keeping records of these sorts of things. It's also, of course, possible that they came to me as mystery batts and I never knew much more than I've shared to begin with! I do know that they were beautiful and that they were carded by my friend Jill, and that makes my enjoyment of the resulting garment even greater.

You might think, looking at the finished garment, that this is a very simple project, but it's impeccably designed and more complicated to execute than you'd think. I've already shared in a previous post how it's constructed and how extensive short rows are used to shape the shoulders. There's also shaping along the armhole to allow the ribbing to sit out a bit from the body and then gussets under the arm to reduce the extra stitches (which you might be able to see in the above photo -- the gusset is right on top of that slightly lighter vertical line where the vest was folded to block).

The color of the yarn and the finished garment continue to give me trouble when I'm photographing it, so I had to edit the images a bit. It keeps blowing out and showing up lighter than it is in real life. But the pops of color from the sari silk are that bright, and they bring me so much joy, as any bright color does in the gray that is a Pennsylvania winter. I ended up using approximately 658 yards and 294 grams of the yarn and have a good amount leftover (though, as per usual, at one point I was worried about a game of yarn chicken). The vest is light but warm, not enough for me for a really cold day but great on top of a long-sleeved tee for the March weather we often get, when the sun is warm even when the air temperature is still only a little above freezing. I have a feeling I'm going to be wearing it a lot this spring and fall, and I would absolutely recommend the pattern. I'm also absolutely going to knit another handspun garment, and likely soon, but I have to do some more pondering on what and with what.