7/5 - I’ve been in love with this pattern since I saw it a few months ago. When I saw the book for sale in the yarn-shop-that-shall-not-be-named when I was on my button hunt, I had to buy it. All these patterns that use laceweight for things other than shawls???? How could I let that go?!

I had a MAJOR problem when I was using Kristin’s ball-winder for my Woolen Rabbit laceweight and some of it got tangled. It was pretty tangled, granted, but it REALLY fuzzed and felted up. I’m unimpressed with it now because I’m just not sure how sturdy this base is, especially after having read about other people’s issues with the same base. And especially since I’m using it in tandem with Fiber Optic’s merino laceweight which is still the best laceweight base I’ve ever handled. Nevertheless, we’ll see how this goes.

I decided to go with the 34” size because according to the schematics, that will actually make a tank top that is 37” around, which is the perfect size for me. I’m planning to use the red for the trim at the bottom and then (hopefully) as the outer edges of the diamonds. We’ll see how this goes, it might backfire on me big time!

As for the name…I spent a few days reading up on Axonometric projections and how that relates to Escher, paradoxes, and “impossible objects”. So after stewing for awhile and getting a little help from Sarah, the tank top finally has a name and we’re off to the races! I’ve finished the trim so far and am unzipping the last few stitches of the provisional cast-on. I used the 3.0mm needles for that part because I’ve done this kind of fold-over edging before and if you don’t go down a few needle sizes, it bells and that drives me CRAZY! Hopefully this will make the tank top more up and down.

7/6/10 - Okay, I’ve attached long lengths of the red laceweight into the tank top which took forever. I’m sure things will go much quicker now. I’ve already made a few changes to how I’m working this up. To start with, I’ve decided to knit it in the round. I truly can’t understand the point of knitting things in separate pieces and then seaming them together. I know that some sweaters need this kind of construction but I think that whenever you can knit in the round, you should. It saves so much time!
***
Crap. Okay, I’m irritated. The diamond motif doesn’t match up to make full diamonds. This is just downright maddening. I don’t want 2/3 of a diamond, I want a whole freakin’ diamond! So I’m playing with the stitch count to figure out what I need to add or subtract. This kind of thing really bothers me - if you’re going to have a motif, it should run evenly all the way around and up the sides. Otherwise, it just looks wonky.

7/7 - I’m so thrilled! I PM’d Olga to ask her about making the diamonds match up, and she actually messaged me back! That, right there, is the mark of a great designer. Here’s what she said, for anyone who might care:

You are right, the side diamonds are not going to match up for some sizes. The reason for this is because the center diamond is what shapes the v neck. And when it comes time to choose between the pretty neck and the sides. You may have redone the math to match the diamonds on the sides but it is crucial for the neckline to be in the center.

That’s something that I had already figured out by studying the photos, so I’m going to take that into account with the changes I’ve made because darn it all, my tank top WILL have completed diamonds all the way around!

6/7/11 - I put this into hibernation during the cold months, but now it’s out and I’m happily knitting away at it again. It’s such slow going, since the rounds are loooong and it’s laceweight, but I’m fairly sure it will be done shortly!

10/10/11 - Wow - did I really NOT post about my issues with this tank top over the summer months? How did that happen? Okay, to start with, these problems are issues that I’m sure NO other knitter will ever run into, unless you decide to do what I did and A) use a completely different type of yarn than the pattern calls for and B) use 2 separate yarns for the diamond vs the outline of the diamond. I picked this up again in June and was happily knitting away on it. It was slow going - it is laceweight, after all - but I had the pattern memorized quickly and just toodled away as I got sucked into both True Blood (best show EVER) and The Vampire Diaries. I was nearly done with this right around the time Jenn was leaving for Albania…well, not done, but I was at the neck decreases.

It was at these neck decreases that I noticed the diamonds looked a bit…puffy. Very puffy. I had kind of noticed it while I was working, but the bottom set were nice and flat so I kept thinking that it was just an “on the needle” versus “off the needle” thing. I made it up to the neck decreases and armholes and was just so overjoyed that the end of this project was within my sights and that I might get to wear it for the rest of the summer. I was so overjoyed that I just kept plugging away (breaking my own personal rule to put the knitting aside and walk away when you think there might be a problem) and soon was at the shoulder seams. This is when I tried it on for the first time for real. I had slipped it on as a tube once or twice but hadn’t really put it on for the full effect. As you can see from my gorgeous gallery of photos, this had become a mistake of epic proportions. Not only was it a wee bit too small, but the diamonds didn’t just puff - they POOFED. You know that scene in Gone With the Wind when Scarlett uses the curtains to make a dress? Well, this could have been the backwoods cousin version of that - it looked like I had grabbed a quilt off of my bed, hacked it into vest proportions, and started to wear that. I thought that a good blocking would help, but then wasn’t sure how to block something in tube form. That was when I came up with the idea to use one of my hideous couch pillows. The night that the final Harry Potter movie came out - the night I realized what a monstrosity this had become - I soaked and blocked this thing to within an inch of its life around that cushion. This led to a fun photo shoot in which you can see photos of me that have fun captions in my head such as, “How brilliant am I to be using this pillow to block my tank top?” and “How did this sweater get this bad without me noticing it?” and my personal favourite, “OH MY GOD LOOK HOW MANY PINS!!!”

The blocking helped only the wee smallest smidgen imaginable. (My hair, in these photos, looks awesome though!) I realized the problem existed on many levels. To start with, the Fiber Optic laceweight I was using had great body, nice and stiff…but that meant that it was pulling more than the Woolen Rabbit yarn, which was a bad thing since it was outlining the design. Secondly, the diamond motif has a slipped stitch every other row. Slipped stitches have WAY less give than do regular knit stitches, so that was pulling as well. The final nail in the coffin (to use vampire imagery) was the fact that I had been tugging a little bit on the red stitches to make sure they laid flat and didn’t let the purple show through. I thought I was just manipulating them, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d probably been slowly tightening up each round so that by the time it hit the top, it was just tight in those areas beyond recognition.

Wearily, I ripped back and started trying to fix it just before my birthday in August. On my flight home from San Francisco - having finished the other scarf and sweater I had taken with me on that journey - I ripped back to the flat perfect diamonds in the beginning and started to try again, this time keeping my hands and stitches loose. But it still didn’t work - after about 8 rounds it was clear to me the poofing was still happening. I was only working on it very sporadically, having lost faith and burnt out on the project, so it took me until about 3 weeks ago to realize this. At the Getaway, I finally recognized that the problem was not being fixed. So I took the needle out of most of the stitches and started working on just 3 diamonds. I wanted to try a few different things to figure out where the problem lay so I could start RIGHT for once. I changed my technique for the make1 stitches. I changed the way I was slipping the stitches. I loosened up my tension. I barely touched the red yarn when doing a k2tog of ssk. These things made the problem worse or, at the very least, no better. Finally, I tried not slipping the stitches in the diamonds but knitting them every single row. That seemed to provide my best solution. It might not look as neat and tidy as the way the diamonds with the slipped stitches do, I’ll definitely grant that…but if I want to make this tank this way, I think it’s what I need to do. And despite the fact that it’s one poofy mass in these photos, I think the potential awesomeness of this project is very clear. I get compliments from random strangers when I’m working on this pattern, that’s how good it is.

So over the weekend, I slowly ripped it out down to the little bit of red at the bottom. Today, I soaked the yarn - the red in particular had way too much crimp in it. Soon, I’ll start the whole thing over again - but at least this time, I’ll know what I’m doing. And if it isn’t going to work out, I’ll be able to recognize that MUCH sooner. I’d love to do this tank in a nice cotton, the way it’s meant to be. I’m sure it would be delightfully lightweight and breezy.

3/25/12 - I am in a VERY good place with this vest/tank. Indescribably good. Not slipping the stitches has worked like gangbusters. This year, I’ve been kicking my outstanding WIPs to the curb one by one. I started by finishing my AMAZING pink sweater, then hummingbird projects one and two for Mom. This month, I finished my mittens, and I think that I might (might) be able to finish this before March runs out on me. I’m at the neck decreases and have decided to work one side at a time. I had this project sitting for awhile because the other projects seemed to take precedence. I think I was also a little afraid of this project still not working out for me. So the first weekend in the month, I took it with me into my weekend-long training for work. That worked like gangbusters. I took it with me the next week to another two trainings. Each training yielded about half of a diamond and soon, between staff meetings and other mindless things that made for good times to work on a project where I had the pattern memorized, I was just about to the armholes. On Friday, I worked my way almost up to that point. Yesterday, I made the armholes and split for the neck in the front. I’m sure today I can finish at least one side of the neckline. I’m still planning on making this a V-neck in the front and the back.

Now, one comment on the actual pattern - the decreases are backwards. I can’t figure out why, but you’re supposed to do right-leaning decreases on the left side of the neckline and left-leaning decreases on the right side. I don’t know why anyone would want to do it that way. On a V-neck, you want the decreases to actually form a V, not be trying to stagger over to the other side! It was this way with the armholes too. I’m guessing this is just a personal preference of the designer, mostly because I can’t think of another reason. In any case, I decided to ignore that and make the decreases lean in the directions they should be leaning in. (So basically, to make it really simple, where it said ssk I’ve k2tog instead and vice versa.) It’s not like it’s difficult for me to change that direction in my head, it’s just damned confusing why it’s written that way in the first place!

4/15/12 - I actually just started weeping with joy over this project - literally, weeping. I know, I’m a little nuts. But I did the three-needle bind off on the first shoulder seam and it looked so good - SO GOOD - that I started to cry. I am this close to actually having a finished vest that I can wear. I’m so tempted to abandon everything else and just work on this today, but I can’t. It’s Sunday - Sunday is when I must accomplish certain things because tomorrow is Monday and Monday is when work starts up again and then the whole week just flashes past.

So here’s what’s left for me to do:

• I need to extend the shoulder strap on one side. I already did all of the decreases and everything, but after trying this on, I realized that the armholes would be a little snug if I just stopped at the point the pattern wanted me to. Especially if I want to wear shirts under this in cooler weather, I need that extra space. So I just did another half diamond motif and continued doing the V-neck decreases to narrow it a bit more.
• I need to do the neck-line shaping one one whole other side, which hasn’t even been started yet. It seems to take about 2-3 hours for me to do one whole side of shaping, so that would suck up most of the day.
• The finishing on this is going to be a bear. I know that in advance. I have about fifty bazillion little red ends that I’ll need to weave in so they’re not noticeable. That will probably take several hours to track down. I know that I’ll need to do a little tidying up around the neckline just because I’m using two different yarns and that’s obvious in a few places. I might need to do a little tidying up around the armholes too, we’ll see. Then I’ll need to figure out if I want to do the armhole bands. I think they look darling in the photo, but it’s really going to rely on A) whether I have any red yarn left because I think it would look GANGBUSTERS in that and B) if I don’t have the red left, will it look okay in the purple?

So I’m realistically looking at about 2 full days of working on this thing in order for it to be completed. I’m 99% certain it will be finished this week, which is beyond exciting to me. Seriously, having this thing done and wearable…this is now my dream. I want to move on to other projects, but I’m trying really hard to be more monogamous these days and only focus on one at a time. I know that if I pick up something new, I’ll totally forget about how much I’m loving this one or I’ll just feel guilty the whole time. But the idea of having this finished before May just gives me the tingles.

4/29/12 - I am 99.9% certain this puppy is DONE. She’s soaking in a bath right now, and I’ll pop her out for blocking in just a few moments, but I think she’s complete! It took me longer than I thought to finish - weaving in all of the ends took at least 3 days of focused work. When I finally put it on, my mom and I agreed that the armholes looked unfinished, so I decided to do a single crochet edging. (I didn’t really want to do the little arm bands, they just didn’t look like they would go with the way the vest came out.) This took time, since I am not anywhere near being an adept crocheter. I had started on Monday of this past week, after spending a huge chunk of the night finishing the end-weaving-in, and it took me until yesterday to be done. This is mostly because Monday was the only night I was really home - Tuesday was the celebration of Robin’s birthday (which went into Wednesday), Wednesday I had a film screening for Sexual Assault Awareness Month and got home late late late from that, and Thursday and Friday were Take Back the Night rallies. Saturday morning was a girl’s empowerment group, so the fact that this was finished yesterday AT ALL pleases me greatly. And clearly I finished just in time, since it’s supposed to be in the 70s this week. (Isn’t that always the way?) But I can tell this is going to be a great week - I finished this vest AND finally got to start on my new Catkin yesterday! Things are looking up! I have Wednesday and Thursday off from work, since I did so much overtime this past week, so I’m looking forward to relaxing and knitting those days. But if it is done, that means that I used about 1885 yards of yarn on this tank top. I want to keep that in mind in case I ever do it again! I’m sure the yardage would be different if I was using only one yarn instead of two.