The Lisa Vest

Just before Christmas, I was shopping in my favorite apparel store.  I was looking for a gift for my sister, when I happened on the most beautiful knit vest.  It was knit in a salt and pepper colored yarn, with a large shawl collar, a cross-over front and was longer in the back.  I loved it, but the one hundred dollar price tag made it a "no-brainer".  I could not afford to buy myself such a lavish gift, right before Christmas.

I thought I would forget about it, but when I ran across this yarn at JoAnn's, I knew this vest would be my next pattern.  The yarn is JoAnn's Sensation, All Wrapped Up in the Black/Grey colorway.  It is a Bulky weight yarn, and I purchased 6 skeins for the vest.  When the vest was completed, I had used approximately 600 yards.

The vest was knit on size US 10 and US 10.5 needles, and despite several false-starts, I was able to knit it up in about 10 days.  The ripping out and starting over 3 times, were all associated with getting the perfect fit.

The vest starts just above the waist on the back.  I wanted it to have a shaped armhole in the back, so it is knit from the bottom up about 2 inches, then the sides are bound-off to create the underarm and front pieces.  After decreasing for the armholes, the back in continually knit in 1 x 1 rib.  The underarm/front pieces are then attached to the back-shoulders. 

Switching to the larger needles, stitches are picked up around the outer edge of the entire piece with a long circular needle and are knit in-the-round, to create the shawl collar, the overlapping front, and the back peplum.

The ribbing changes every 3 inches from 2 x 1, to 2 x 2, to 2 x 3, and back to 1 x 1.  This creates some interest in the pattern, although it is difficult to see with this variegated yarn.  If it were knit in a solid color this would definitely add to the eye-appeal.  The vest was bound-off loosely, and closed with a carved-bone pick, I purchased at the Mountainman Rendezvous last year.  I was so happy with the final design, and the final cost was $24.00.  Quite a savings, don't you think?  You can find the pattern at:  The Lisa Vest.

Only one week left, to become a "Follower" of this blog, and be entered for a chance to win this hand-knit hot water bottle and its cozy cover.  The drawing will be held on January 31, 2012, and it will be on it's way to the lucky winner, shortly thereafter.

This past week, my husband and I talked to a group of ladies about our new alpaca endeavor.  We were both really surprised at the interest we received, at what we have chosen to do in our "golden years".

We received our first shipment of yarn, right at the end of the year.  This is the yarn produced from Licorice Whip.  We had it mixed with bamboo fiber, to create this beautiful gray heather. 

Cocoa Bean's fleece was mixed with fiber from a suri alpaca.  Although she is a really a pretty-faced alpaca, and great mother, she has very low-grade fleece.  The addition of the suri made the yarn very soft, and added a heather quality to the yarn as well.

Our yarn was processed at the Crooked Fence Alpaca Farm and Mill in Mona, Utah.  These are the holding trays, where the fleece is allowed to dry, after a  thorough washing.

Large washing machines are used to wash the fleece, and you can see that fleece from several animals can be washed at the same time, with the large dividers in the drum of this machine.

Here the fleece is combed into a gossimer cloud.

Then it is turned into roving.  Steve has been using the roving left-overs to create a rug for the fireplace hearth in our family room (pictures of the finaly product will be shown in a future post).  We have a few large bags of roving created from inferior fleece from our animals.

This is the spinning machine, where the roving is twisted into yarn plys, and then the plys are twisted into the final weight yarn.  I chose fingering weight yarn this year, since we only had two animals, and I knew I would be knitting most of it.  Our final yarn production was 10 (450 yd) hanks of grey from Licorice, and 8 (350 yd) hanks of light brown from Cocoa.

Finally, it ends up on these racks, for a final drying, labeling and to be twisted into hanks.  The mill was so interesting to me.  Having seen the machines at work, I cannot imagine the process of hand-spinning, on a spinning wheel, or with a drop spindle.  Thank Heavens for technology!

My next "give-away" will be a large hank from our first batch of yarn.  So stay tuned . . . . . and

Happy Knitting!