This could be one of my favorite finished projects!
First, a huge thanks to prairiespinner for the stitch pattern and inspiration for the Ithilien. As soon as I saw her Ithilien, I knew I needed to try the brocade pattern and decided that it would be a good time to pull out the Kauni Effektgarn that I had stashed away more than a year ago.

Not using any particular vest pattern, I cast on 300 stitches on 3.00mm needles and did a 3x2 rib in a color pattern not unlike the one Ron Schweitzer uses on his Sandness Pullover. I only increased to 308 stitches (continued on the same needle size) and carefully arranged the brocade pattern so it was centered but also provided a side panel pattern of my own creation for a waist decrease (see photo #9). If I continued to make this a pullover rather than a vest, I was prepared to take the side panel up the underarm section of the sleeves.

This was my first time using the Kauni Effektgarn and I was really experimenting with the color graduation and the pattern as well as shaping at the same time. It certainly kept my attention!!! I realized that the Kauni definitely needs a hawk eye to watch the shading, especially when the background and foreground eat up different amounts of yarn! Good light is a necessity when shading is more subtle! I “manipulated” the color sequence at least 3 times but was displeased with one of my changes. I called it “the line” and moaned excessively to Ableramm about it! I think I’m over it now…
By the time I reached the length appropriate for the underarm steeks, I was not quite in the same place for setting the vee neck steek so I continued on to an optimal spot for the vee to veer off in either direction and have the stitch pattern vine along with it. I am glad I waited. My steeks were all 12 stitches wide in a stripe of foreground, background. (I was careful to keep the background as my dominant color throughout but the traveling foreground stitches had their own sort of dominance going!)

I hemmed and hawed about the shoulder join and ended up following Ann Feitelson’s method of a 3 needle bindoff that creates an envelope shape (almost “boxed in”) at the top. I scratched my head about this and finally saw that when I cut the armhole steeks from the cast on edge to the shoulder, I had a nice, continuous facing at the shoulder! Works for me!

The v-neck decreases were every 3rd round, the armholes were every other row until I had decreased 9 times. I decided on a shawl vee and followed the general instructions in ‘Knitting in the Old Way’ on page 126 under shawl collars. I used the method of starting by using the back neck stitches and picked up 4-6 stitches each side of the vee every row using a 2x2 rib. When I got to the bottom held center stitch, I picked it up from both sides so it was nicely incorporated and balanced.
I picked up the armhole stitches on the 3.00mm needles but switched to 2.5mm after the first row so that they weren’t too loose.
Thanks again, Prairie Spinner for the lovely stitch pattern!!!