I spent most of August sweating my buns off - not just from the muggy heat of Montreal, but the decision to work on a stranded colourwork project.  Deciding to spend my free time in the summer with a wooly blanket draped across my lap was probably not the wisest decision I’ve ever made, but I am pleased with the results!

In early July, I got it in my head that what my husband needed was a vest.  Every mathematician needs a professorly vest, right? He was only vaguely enthused, but I decided to push ahead anyway.  I spent quite some time searching for the perfect vest project - something with colourwork, possibly with argyle, so as to teach myself some steeking technique.  I liked pieces of different patterns, but I never quite found what I was looking for.

After a lot of reading, I decided to cobble together my own pattern and came up with this:

Ben’s Argyle Vest (Ravelry Project Link)
Yarn: Reynolds Whiskey in Charcoal and Pearl

I used the chart from Eunny Jang’s Deep-V Argyle vest (rav link), and made heavy use of her steeking tutorials.  The rest of it was just things I liked from other patterns all mashed together to make a fairly straight-forward garment.

Not only did I have a fantastic time making it, but it was extremely well-received.  Colourwork is most definitely my thing, and steeking is better than sliced bread, my friends.  It was a hell of a lot of finishing work, but it was so much fun!  And I was so very pleased with the result that I instantly forgave all the time I spent cursing it.

I had one major setback with this project, and that was that the shoulders were far too wide for the look I was going for.  I hadn’t decreased enough on the front and back.  To fix it, I picked up the ribbing along the line where I would have preferred it to be.  Once that was done, I reinforced the stitches three away from the new picked-up line, and cut off the excess.  To keep it from fraying out, I blanket-stitched down the excess fabric on the inside.  It was a fairly successful fix, if perhaps not the most elegant one.

The Reynolds Whiskey was great.  This was my first time working with a nice airy yarn intended for colourworking, and it has really turned me on to the more scratchy, sheepy yarns out there.  Up until now, I have been a sucker for the softer decadent luxury yarns, but this was really nice to work with.  And this particular yarn has a lot of lovely and unusual colours running through it, making it have quite a lot of depth and texture to the colour.  The pearl colourway has a pink and blue undertone, while the charcoal has some yellows and blues in it.  The consequence is that this vest goes with just about every single shirt that my husband owns.  Oh yes, project win!

We took the vest out for a photo shoot one fall afternoon.  Here are a few more shots from our afternoon in the park:

Tags: completed projects, MrK, steek, vest

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