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Knit Picks’ Slipped Cable Vest, in Wool of the Andes worsted. Needles: Harmony wooden circs, size 4.

Cute, huh? I’m quite pleased! It was fast and fun to knit. However, for the sake of other knitters who might want want to make the same vest: Warning! There are a lot of errors in the pattern!

1. You need to start the cable patterns on the second row (RS), which is not really made clear in the pattern. Also, you don’t want to just randomly place your increases! Count your stitches and figure out where to place increases so that the ribbing continues unbroken up the sides of the vest.

2. This one might trip up a new knitter: when working the short-row shoulder shaping, you will start on a WS row for the left side, and a RS row for the right side! You want the taller part of the fabric at the neckline, and the lower part at the armhole, so you’ll start working the short rows at the neck edge, not the armhole edge!

3. When you start knitting the right side and back after binding off for the armholes, the instructions are unclear and could lead you wrong. You must start by knitting a WS row or you’ll lose a row of your cable pattern.

4. When you pick up stitches around the neckline for the collar, the instructions don’t tell you to pick up stitches up the side-fronts! For me (size small), it was 23 front +18 side-front + 46 back +18 side front +23 front for a total of 128, not the 94 called for in the pattern. Quite an omission. EDIT: Now I’m wondering if maybe I’m wrong about these numbers… maybe they really did want me to pick up far fewer stitches than I did, though it seems as if the fabric would pucker. That might account for the width of the neckline. Hmm… Well, try it both ways and see how it works for you!

All in all, a somewhat sloppily written pattern and not one I’d recommend for new knitters, or those who don’t want to have to figure out where the pattern is steering them wrong :)

This was a fast and fun knit, despite the pattern errors. Wool of the Andes is a lovely yarn, very easy to work with, and it blocked beautifully. The pattern needs some tweaks to make it great (besides fixing the errors). Balancing the cables, front and back, so that like cables meet at the shoulder, would be easy and very effective. In size small, swapping the positions of the front cables would not change the stitch count and would mean that the cables met smoothly at the shoulders. The neckline is oddly low. The collar needs short rows in the back to raise it — I added four sets of staggered short rows, raising the back of the collar by an inch (4 inches high in back, 3 inches in the front). Another touch I added was to balance the collar ribbing so that it starts and ends with k2, PLUS a chain selvage — so, on a right side, sl1, *k2, p2* around, end k2, p1. Wrong side: sl1, *p2,k2* around, end p3.

Another little tweak — instead of binding off for the armholes, just slip the stitches to a holding string. Drop the working yarn, and attach a new ball for the back and another new ball for the other front. Then when you pick up the armhole ribbing it will continue smoothly up from the side-ribbing!

This is not my favorite FO, but it’ll be useful, and the yarn was only $14, so even though it’s not perfect I’m still happy I made it :) More photos:

(Look at my ridiculous puffy hair. Oh how I wish it would lie flat!)