An argyle-ish vest, using my guess at the chart from Eunny Jang’s ‘deep-v argyle vest’ (I eyeballed it from some pictures I saw of it) and otherwise being made up by me with some references to technique books along the way.

July 31 update:
I turned my swatch into a doll-sized vest, complete with steeked arms and v-neck. I went the route of a non-reinforced steek, which wasn’t terrible (but wasn’t great). I made a few obvious mistakes, which I’m hoping I’ve corrected now.

I’m straight on to the adult-sized real-deal!

Aug 7 update:

I am almost done the 2nd repeat of the chart. Only 2.5 more repeats to go until something new happens. This is getting a little dull.

Aug 25 update:

The last few inches took forever, for various reasons. I bound off about 3/4 of an inch after I intended to because I wasn’t confident that the neck would be big enough. Right now, the width between shoulder and neck is 5”, and I wanted it to be more like 4”. I’m going to pick up the ribbing on the arms an inch into the body, and gain ground that way. It means I’ll have extra knitting inside, but I may reinforce it and trim it off so it’s not so bulky inside at the arms.

The pattern fought me to the bitter end. Just as I was about to bind off, I caught a mistake in the chart - I’d left out one of the repeats of the lines. I had to rip back five rows and correct it. A few days ago I spent an evening dropping two columns of stitches back ten rows to correct two one-stitch mistakes I’d made in the chart. Maddening and time-consuming, but still less time than ripping out and re-knitting the ten rows.

Next step: crocheted reinforcement of the steeks, cutting, and picking up for ribbing on neck and arms.

August 27 update:

My god, what a lot of finishing. The steeks are trimmed and blanket-stitched down for security, the ends are woven, and all this bad boy needs is some blocking.

In the end, the shoulders were too wide. I picked up the ribbing for the armholes in such a way that I ‘decreased’ another six stitches over twelve rows. This left me with about an inch and a half of fabric inside the vest, so I reinforced it and cut off the excess.

I think it looks pretty darned good, and Ben loves it. Can’t ask for more than that.

Aug 28 update:

I had planned to take some nice FO pictures of the vest today, but I woke up to find that my husband took it with him on a business trip out of town. Unblocked and all, he couldn’t wait to wear it.

I think that’s a good sign.

October 11 update:

Finally took some nice pictures of the vest, but still haven’t gotten to block it. It bugs me every time I see Ben wearing it that it hasn’t been blocked, but he wears it all the freaking time. I think I need to make him another vest.