Using up stash!

I will be using lighter yarn than called for; the pattern asks for yarn rated ‘6’ - I’m using ‘5’; the recipient is between the ‘small’ & ‘medium’ size. I’m intending to use up all this yarn - probably playing yarn chicken - roughly following the Medium directions.

Did the starting chain around a 5mm knitting needle w/ cable, then HDC into the back of each stitch, leaving the front of the chain stitches to be the edge.

First Adjustment:
Starting Chain: 60 stitches, making the length a total of 59 HDC’s and 25” long.

Second Adjustment:
Arm-hole: HDC in 36 stitches, then Ch24, Skip last 23 stitches. (For the Ch24 - brought the working yarn around to the front of the current stitch, so the top of the chain would be inside the arm-hole. Made the Ch24 same as the starting Ch for the pattern, around the knitting needle w/cable and HDC’s into the back of each stitch.)

Each front piece had to be 13 full rows wide.

The back had to be 36 rows wide.

I detest sewing, so I slip-stitched the shoulders together across the top; from the outer edge inwards on both sides. Left the ends free, and connected them invisibly to the SC around the front & neck when it was time to add that in.

Next time, when doing the SC around the front & neck, will do multiple of 3 stitches, and start the picot row with a SC in the first stitch.

Hem: Ended each shell row with a DC into the starting chain of the previous set.

The waist of the recipient is 34cm (13.385”) down from the shoulder seam. So measured that, and it was 7 stitches below the bottom of the armistice. Started the belt on the 6th stitch down, and into the next 3 stitches down.

Made each belt strap length to be twice the width of the vest. (101 rows total.)

Last two rows of each belt strap:

SC into first 2 stitches. Ch1. SC into next 2 stitches.
Turn - (no chains) - and 3DC into the Ch1 space, Ch2, 3DC into same C1 space. Bound off to the edge of the belt as invisibly as I could.

I am surprised that I have much more of this yarn left over than I had anticipated! (Was expecting to be playing yarn chicken!)

While technically the project was finished 12 September, 2025 - today (05 October, 2025) I decided that I did not want all that extra left over yarn!

So..! After several trial-and-error experiments, I finally settled on adding one more row of the shell clusters to the hem, then used what was left to do SC all along both edges of each waist-tie.

This left me with a bit over 30cm (12”) of the yarn left, which I crocheted into a small ball, which the cats seem delighted to play with.

Now it’s finished!