a bit of yoke stranded love

Lately I’ve had a “thing” with adding sleeves to patterns that would otherwise just be vests. Someday I would love to knit myself a vest, and have thought about it a few times. But I’m not sure if they would look good on me or not. When I first saw the shalom pattern I thought “oooo, this would rock with sleeves.” I finished it, still have to take pictures of it and blog about it. I did add sleeves and it does rock a bit. Now when I saw Lolly’s Létt-Lopi Vest I knew it would be perfect pattern for the blue Berroco Peruvia that Mike got me for Christmas. I would have to pick up a few contrast colors, and that means a trip to the yarn shop. (yay!)

When I looked at the pattern for the vest, I thought I would wear it more often if it had sleeves. I cast on for the body and knit away, halfway through I realized, duh, that I would have to cast on the sleeves and attach them to the yoke where it says to cast on so many stitches for the sleeves. Duh! For some reason I was thinking that I would add the sleeves after I knit the yoke. Um, yeah. I know it doesn’t work like that. So I cast on 30sts worked 5 rows of seed stitch to match the hem. I increased 2 stitches every 10 rows until I had 48 sts. Then ended up knitting 6 rows before stopping, my finished sleeves measured 19″. I added the sleeves to the body where in the pattern is says to cast on for them. I put 10 sts on each side on hold for the underarms. I wanted my sleeves to be a bit fitted. I didn’t want them to be baggy but I do want to be able to wear a long sleeve shirt under it for extra warmth.

I don’t think I have a particularly long torso, I’m a little on the short side on a good day I’m a full 5’3″ tall. I added 1.3” to the body. Making my finished body measurement 13.5″. I wanted my sweater to fall a little bit below my jeans, just above the back pockets. Anyway one of the best things about this type of sweater is that the best part is the last. Motivating you to finish up the sea of stockinette to get to that good stuff… the color-work.

I knit 4 rows before starting the fair-isle pattern, I can’t remember if the pattern said to do that or not… I used many safety pins to mark out the repeats because I have an inability to count at times, it made it easier to see a mistake. I thought of this after I tinked back a row a few too many times. Also, I used 4 colors instead of the 3. Cause I just liked it better! And I used this calculator for the decrease just before the neckband. Also, I kinda forgot and only left out row 40. Which made the yoke a little bit taller. Oops, oh well. The yoke fits fine, and only occasionally hits my neck. But its ok when it does, read: it doesn’t bother me enough to rip it out. I do wish I had added some short rows to the back of the neck before binding off. Oh, well. Next time.

I absolutely love how this sweater came out, its perfect. Fits me wonderfully, and makes me feel like a million bucks when I’m wearing it. This is my first sweater for nakniswemodo. And I couldn’t be happer with how it turned out.
the dets:
pattern: Lett-Lopi Vest by Védís Jónsdóttir PDF!
size: small (32″)
needles: US 7 / 4.5 mm and US 8 / 5.0 mm
yarn: Berroco Peruvia
MC- 3.58 skeins in color 4145 (blue heather with bits of green)
CC1- 0.44 skeins in color 7124 (white)
CC2- 0.32 skeins in color 7125 (green)
CC3- 0.28 skeins in color 7152 (brown)
Started February 6 and completed February 15 2009
raveled here. (All my notes all there, maybe even a bit easier to read.)
a note on the yarn: this was a wonderfully wooly yarn to knit with. It’s a tad bit hairy and something that I can only see using for sweaters or the like. I think it would drive me mad if it was anything else because of the little hairs that wiggle free. In the 7 skeins that I wound and used there was only 1 knot. It was more of a join, almost like a Russian join. And after wearing it four times it started to pill, I had a feeling that it would. Chanting it won’t pill didn’t work either.  The the piling is minimal, but is happening. With that said I would totally use this yarn again, in fact I can’t bring myself to return the 2 unused skeins. I think a vest would be nice, a nice stripy vest. Maybe I’ll add solid colored sleeves…

It’s totally normal to love a sweater this much, right? *sigh*

Advertisement