Sea Air Art's Creative Blog

Connor's Vest

This is a catch-up post on some of my Christmas knitting.

I made a vest for our grandson. He is ten (I think! Penny, how old is Connor, I can’t keep up!). Boys tend to like things to be manly – if they are expected to wear them – and especially if they are ten (ish). This seriously restrains the creative spirit but I rose to the challenge. I chose a yarn that was easy for his Mom to care for; machine wash, dry flat; Berroco Comfort in worsted weight. I chose a nice, manly colorway of variegated greens and browns for a camouflage look. I resisted the erg to embellish or decorate and stuck to a plain, basic vest pattern from “The Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns” by Ann Budd.

My favorite knitting pattern reference, BTW.

Link to Book on Amazon.com

To give myself a challenge, I opted to knit it on my new (old?) knitting machine on which I have only knit blank squares (for dyeing) at this point (and since). It was a great learning experience. What did I learn, you ask?

How to shape a garment on a knitting machine.

Vest Shaping

Turns out it’s not really any different than when you hand knit. Cool! How to seam side seams – Ack! This was more of a challenge as I always knit in the round to avoid seaming, but I did it and it looked great.

And the two most important things I learned; first, a gauge swatch knit on a knitting machine that is 30 sts wide and 4″ long will give you an entirely different gauge than a full garment that is 80 some sts wide by 16″ long.

This causes re-knitting.

Second, stealth knots are evil (see rant).

This causes re-knitting.

Vest detail

Once these two issues were successfully dealt with, the vest turned out extremely well and I was very pleased. I had definitely risen to my challenge. It wasn’t quite finished on time but he had it by mid January, close enough for a Grandmas with no time sense what-so-ever.  o)

Connor and his vest

The best part? Connor loved it and it fits just like I intended, a little roomy so he can wear it next year too. Isn’t he dapper in his new vest?

Deb H

Tags: Finished Object, Kids, knitting

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 7:31 pm and is filed under Books, knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.