Solution

I talked to Dorothy Siemens, who designed the Beech Leaf vest, and she encouraged me to reuse my swatch yarn. Since I was just starting the second front piece, I used new yarn and knitted up yarn in alternate pairs of rows, to minimize any differences. I also used the yarn straight from the swatch, without ripping, skeining, steaming & winding, on the theory that the crinkles would put a little extra yarn into the stitches just in case. Or maybe I was lazy. We'll see if I get a boucle effect.

I'm up to the armpit & bust darts, and even thought to measure the other front up against myself to see if the bust dart placement looked good. It does, although it's perhaps a little high. Since I expect a cotton lace vest to stretch, I think I'll leave them there. (Laziness clouding my judgment? I hope not.)

So if I can get knitting instead of spending my evenings playing Lego Star Wars (hey! I blew up the Death Star!) I might even have a vest next week. Although there is far too much two-steps-forward, one-step-back going on. I was wondering about it to my son -- I didn't make nearly as many mistakes on the first two pieces of this garment, and I've pretty much memorized the pattern, so what's going on -- when I realized that I had stopped looking at the pattern. Unfortunately "pretty much" memorized doesn't quite cut it. I've pulled the pattern card out of my knitting bag, and soon I will have the pattern page there for tallying decreases as well. This garment has reached the stay-at-home stage, just as I'm getting out and about again! But I'm excited to have the end in sight.

Since no post is complete without a picture, but I have no fiber related ones to share today, here's one of my kids at Wall-E's home away from home: