The Harlot was Here

On the blog. Friday. Read my post about Ottawa and left a comment. I was thrilled. My husband thought I was crazy. I was a happy girl that day.

So happy, in fact, that I decided to go ahead, damn the torpedoes, and lengthen that sweater vest I designed. It's been sitting in my basket all week screaming and pleading with me to finish it off, and well, I didn't want to call it done until I made a call on the length. It needed to be longer ... I really don't need a knitted cotton belly tank. It's hard to see just how short it is in this picture, but trust me ... it would have worked, but an extra couple of inches would help big time.



So I embarked on my great lengthening adventure. First, I picked up the 120 stitches around:



I made sure I had them all, and then took the scissors to it. Just below the start of the ribbing. Oddly, this didn't make me weak in the knees or ready to vomit. I'm not sure why I was so confident.


Lots of yarn carnage, too. Little bits of Debbie Bliss denim cotton aran floating all over me and my living room. Then came the unraveling, which was a bit nerve-wracking with the start of the ribbing. Note to self: Just hack the ribbing off and unravel plain stockinette. Because once I got through the ribbing, it unravelled lickety split.



I'm sorry I didn't take pictures of the actually knitting-to-lengthen process, but you all know what knitting looks like, so why bother? I added an extra 2-3 inches of stockinette to the bottom of the vest and then did the ribbing. And I must say this: the transition was SEAMLESS. You simply cannot tell where the original iteration stops and the expansion begins. All done in a weekend and the pre-blocked vest (which looked fine w/o blocking) made its debut last night to a friend's birthday party. I'm very content, and my husband was even impressed with the collar ribbing and sleeves.


Progress also continues on Melody, but I'm holding pictures for today. Knitting this shawl is kinda like eating a never-ending pasta bowl ... this yarn ball never gets any smaller, I swear, even though I'm looking at a solid 11-inches (slight stretching to block in order to measure the finished product) and no end to the yarn in sight.