Bill's Mystery Cardigan Vest is Done!

The pithy recap: this is my first large scale spinning and knitting project that started as a plastic bag full of dirty fleece shorn off some New Zealand sheep. I had no plan for this fleece, which was the packing material for my Ashford Traveller.  There are three other posts for this project.  The other posts are:

Mystery Wool Project for Bill where I estimate it will take me 107 hours to complete.  How did that calculation work out?

Mystery Wool Tribbles tells the tale of 12 hours of carding.

Bill's Mystery Cardigan Vest though not mentioned in the post, I looked at my spinning diary and spent 42 hours spinning and plying.  The result was just over 900 yards of 2 ply yarn.

The design for the sweater is a basic v-neck cardigan from the Handy Book of Knitting Patterns.  I deviated from Ms. Budd's basic design by working the entire vest in one piece so the only seams would be at the shoulders, as you can see from this photo.  I did this to make the most of my hand spun yarn. 

I used a provisional cast on, because as mentioned in an earlier post, I planned to do the ribbing in black.  The reason for this was I didn't think I would have enough brown yarn to finish the project.

Here's a slightly more sensible view of the vest, which is done, minus the ribbing at the armholes, neck and hem.   You may have noticed the stripes.  There are three reasons for the stripes and my first lesson in large scale spinning.

Even though my fleece was a natural dark brown, there were variations in the colors, which is due to natural variations in the fleece plus sunlight lightening the outermost layers.  I forgot about these factors when I carded my first sample skein.  I went a little nutty and carded a large batt.
I knit the sample from the first skein, took the yarn specs and then began the carding process. 

Skein #2 was processed in much the same way as Skein #1.  At this point, I remember the color variaton and altered my batt carding process and run each batt through the carder one time.  Next, I laid out the batts on the floor and organized them from lightest to darkest.  Each batt was split in half and matched up with a different colored half-batt.  I ran these through the carder a second time.

Scared it will be too small for Bill at this point. 

At this stage, I'm beginning to worry about the amount of wastage.  The fleece is quite oily, which helps it stick to the carder.  It seems like I'm losing a lot more than 10%.  By now, I've spent a lot of time with this fleece and it doesn't appear to have been picked through and there were a lot of variable length fibers, including very short (1/4") fibers, which indicates second or third passes with the clippers.  This was probably the point where I came up with the idea to spin up some black ribbing so all the brown would be used for the main vest.

For the next large scale solid colored spinning project from a natural colored fleece, I would make a smaller sample skein.  Once my calculations were complete, I'd process the project fleece three times through the carder in order to get a better color blend.

And now, the knitting, done on Size 5 US circular needles (my trusty Knit Picks needle set) using the longest cable I own, which is about 50" long.  I cast on 200 stitches, using a provisional cast on and worked in stockinette stitch for 9 inches and was on my third skein.

And now I'm worried because I had only 6 skeins!  I knit a generous 6" swatch and calculated my numbers 3 times before casting on, but hand spun has different properties. I laid the vest on the kitchen counter and found it was 9 inches too wide.

Nerts.

I recalculated gauge by taking 5 measurements and calculating the average then re-working my stitch numbers.  Re-provisionally cast on 176 stitches.  For those keeping track at home, that's 88 for the back and 44 each for the left and right sides. I don't like the look of the selvedge stitches and work all the stitches right to the end of each row. Also, the nice thing about the Handy Guide books, is that the shaping calculations are worked out for you.  In this case, I only used my cast on number of stitches as my guide for armhole and neck shaping.

To be honest, I'm not sure how to overcome this problem.  I made a 6 inch swatch, washed, blocked and then calculated.  Maybe next time, I take Elizabeth Zimmerman's advice and make a hat for the swatch.

In terms of time, that was about 16 hours of knitting, frogged in  moments. Ok, many moments, but still, frogged more quickly than it was knit.

I started over two Saturdays ago.  I'd been feeling crappy the week before, but not bad enough to stay home from work.  By Sunday, though, I was clearly sick and, as it turns out, I was home through Thursday.  I spent that time knitting the vest and blocked it on Wednesday in the late afternoon.  I was a little disturbed that it appeared I picked up too many stitched on the left side, but tried to fix it during the blocking. 

As you can see, I finished with brown, rather than black, yarn.  Why?  Because I had 2 small skeins left at the end.  It looked like enough for the ribbing and Bill was fine with the solid brown vest.  Bill planned to wear this vest as part of his vintage casual look, with a tweed vest and one of his hats that is brown with black trim.  So I suggested the black buttons we've been recycling from his work pants. Black cargo pocket fatigue style pants he's worn for years.  I couldn't tell you how many buttons there are other than: a lot.

At this point, the buttons were sewn on and he tried on the vest.  It fit fine.  It looks rustic, which was planned, and better than I had hoped.  But the button band was problematic, as were my choice of button holes.  I cannot recommend Sally Melville's method, which is: yarnover, knit 2 together.  That's it.  It does leave a hole, but an easily stretchable and, frankly, very sloppy hole. Made no less sloppy by the irregularities of hand spun yarn.  And, the buttons popped outta their holes.

I'm at about 42 hours of knitting but being sick all week, I didn't keep track. 

I definitely picked up too many stitches on the left neck band.  Blocking does not solve all problems.  And then the problematic buttonholes.  I had to remove the buttons, frog the band and start over, this time, counting the stitches picked up.  Also, trying a more complicated but, hopefully sturdier, buttonhole.

Neckband version 2.  I took measurements of the neck band and estimated the number of stitches to pick up.  Better but still the look was scallopy and the buttons might be too far apart.  I have just over an ounce of yarn left, so I frog it again, re-work the neck band and make it wider to give Bill a bit more room.

After another total 10 hours on the neckband, it's done, and the buttons sewn on again.  The final neck band is 3" wide. 

Mystery wool vest, by tenukihandcrafts

However, it's still a wee bit small. I'd say, 1 skein short.  The only thing that would fix the problem at this point would be to frog the entire vest and start over and shorten the length by about 4", or a standard length vest, in order to make it wider.  Or, go back to the original plan of black ribbing and use all the brown yarn for the body. Still, frogging would be involved and some quick re-calculating.

Bill suggested I just spin new yarn and make a new vest.  That's my due in autumn project which will be a lighter brown, knit in seed stitch, which a matching scarf.  Bill's not really a knit hat guy.

I checked the measurements from my original plan and they came out very close.  The width was right on, the length was 1" longer.  It was the same length (12") from shoulder to underarm. The extra inch was below the underarm.  I recorded 17" and got 18".

I learned I can design a major spinning/knitting project from scratch and have it turn out as designed. My handspun yarn, although it looks rustic, turned out better than I'd hoped.  Even though I didn't record the actual time I spent knitting this vest, I estimate 50 hours.

The total time on this project from dirty fleece to finished vest: 104 hours.  There you have it.  My first planned out spinning and knitting project.  Not perfect, but it did turn out as designed.  Even if the design was a bit too small.