When I first saw the Bookworm Vest in Cheryl Oberle’s Folk Vests, I liked it. It was simple without being boring, and it looked like it would set off Cascade 220 Quatro quite nicely. The only drawback was that even the smallest size, Size A, was larger than I wanted. Maybe this should’ve rung an alarm bell, since this is not a problem I normally have with women’s patterns. But after I looked over the stitch pattern, it seemed that resizing the pattern would be really easy. All I would have to do is make the slightest of alterations to the pattern stitch, and most of my work would be done. So I plunged in.
Much, much later, when I had finished the back, it became clear to me why this pattern doesn’t go below Size A.
I suppose it’s not all that obvious when the vest is lying flat, but the upper back is much narrower than my actual upper back or most women’s. Somehow I completely forgot that your shoulder width has nothing to do with how much you weigh. Or to put it another way, most women’s shoulder widths fall in a much narrower range of sizes than their waists do. So when I went for my < Size A vest, the shoulders shrank in the same proportions as the rest of the vest, becoming ridiculously narrow. No reasonable amount of armhole edging is going to make up for that.
So sometime along, when I’m feeling destructive, this vest gets frogged. Yes, there’s probably some way to reknit the back to more human proportions, but I’m just not interested enough to do it. The Quatro 220 can become some other vest or be donated to charity or something, and I can stop suffering feelings of obligation every time I see the project in the closet.
But drat, I did want to see how those pockets were going to turn out…
Silver Threads 