A New Back-Burner Project

Back in December, I went to Imitation Game with a group of my friends, and our favorite thing about the movie was the knits, more specifically the sweater vests. We decided that we should all knit our own sweater vests, but I didn’t quite know what to knit. Colorwork? Texture? Vintage? My own design? Then Erin said she was going to knit A Knitted Waistcoat from A Stitch in Time, and I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate than a 40s sweater vest, so I decided to knit myself one, too. It seemed like the perfect choice because I no longer have a back-burner project, one without deadlines or urgency that requires very little thought from me.

This isn’t going to be a totally mindless project, though. After knitting a few swatches, I realized that I was never going to get gauge. The gauge is pretty crazy for this pattern, so I’m not too surprised. I’m going to go with the needle size that gives me the right row gauge. With that I have a stitch gauge that’s too big, but I’ve run the numbers, and it works out so I can knit a size smaller and have my vest come out the right width. I’ll use the smaller size for the horizontal instructions and my normal size for the vertical stuff, and that should give me a vest that fits. It’s a vest so I don’t have to be super precise about the armhole shaping or anything like that, and that’s what is going to allow me to do a lazy modification like this for gauge.