Misfit

I am making myself a fitted vest out of my screaming blue Ayany yarn, using guidelines from Barbara Walker's Knitting From the Top but adding bust darts to accommodate my superstructure. Sounds good, no?

As I knit, though, I remembered that I haven't actually made a garment for my torso since before my son was born, almost seven years ago. The relatively modest bust darts I used then and the really rather alarming bust darts I need now are vastly different; it's like learning the whole process over again.

Here's the vest just after the finish of the darts:

The markers show where my short rows start, both horizontally & vertically. Vertical placement is fine, but the horizontal placement is way off.


Here's how I think it should be fitting (note safety pin-created tucks near the shoulders). I should have started the darts almost two inches higher so that the short rows are centered across my bust. Instead I started them at the center point. It's all very obvious to me now which I guess means it wasn't all for naught. I think I can now create bust darts that really do fit my shape. Unfortunately that means ripping way back; even in this bulky yarn I've lost a day's knitting.


On the plus side, this will let me fix the armhole shaping which I had been trying to pretend was Just Fine.

In other news I have been unreasonably excited by some roving June describes here and have been ripping apart my garage searching for fleece to treat the same way. I knew just the fleeces -- two brownish gray Shetland fleeces that produce drab brownish gray yarn that would be just wonderful overdyed red and gold and brown. I spent quite a while looking for them last night until I remembered that I sold them. Seven years ago. (Yes, I have a Fleece Problem.) Poking around a little further, though, I found another brown Shetland fleece or two (I collected them for a while, trying to find the Perfect One) that will probably do. The plan was to sort, re-skirt, and pick them today, while it's 70 degrees, and then dye them the rest of the week, while it's 50. My daughter threw up at one in the morning, though (and at two, and four, and six) so plans for the day are somewhat sketchy. Wish me (and her) luck.