It is a very quick and easy knit vest to knit using stash yarn and large 12mmUK needles. It flies off the needles with great speed – mine took me three days to knit from beginning to end. It is something to love, something lovely to knit and very useful by using up your stash yarn – that you also bought because you loved it.
This vest is made up of chunky yarn by playing 3 to 6 yarns together to make a really nice fat yarn. Please be aware that what you make with your plied yarn maybe thicker or thinner than what I plied because it is all random but totally works out in the end because we knit by length. Here are some visual examples from my swatch book of the yarns that I used.
For a yarn example, you can see here I used 4 strands of mohair together with 1 strand of Lettlope or two strands of orange mohair with five strands of very thin of the yarn or, for example, one of the yarns that I used on its own was the Big Wool by Rowan so the experimentation of yarns plied together goes on and on and the results are a surprise and exciting which makes you excited about colour knitting.
In the pattern, I recommend practising swatching for gauge. I give you instructions on how to measure a section of your knitting that you like and feel the drape of and how to make this work in your own vest project.
I have knitted two of these vests and I wear one in the winter and the other one was bought by a client and I enjoyed embroidering a little label for the neck which you can see it here.
The last images are knitted by Kath Ward this week which she shared to instragram and I was so happy to see. She has been a long time follower of mine on Instagram and she normally knits lace so chose to knit this chunky Vest pattern as a rest. It also took her three days to knit – I bet she knits another.
Cath’s Chunky knit VestCath’s yarns
She knitted one strand of grey mohair through all of her waist yarn colours to keep unity through it all.
You can have a lot of fun with this pattern and just use what you’ve got and really enjoy it and see what happens
The pattern has 9 pages and includes images of the yarns that I used, information on how to get your gauge, photo images of progress of the vest, finished measurements of my vest, and written instructions on how to make it
It’s a real joy quick joy to make for yourself or for a gift or to just to use up some of that stash that you have that you’ve never touched for years but really liked.
This is a project to use those really like lots of different yarns.
When I am lost, I come out here – to the base of Stanage Edge where the millstones lie. I eat breakfast and feel the gentle breath of a breeze. I can see for miles out towards Hope Valley, the stones are ancient – have been pushed and fallen, the rocks well climbed by amateurs and professionals alike and the paths well walked. I have so many creative ideas that they are bursting and I’ve stopped to a point of disconnection because I measure myself by reward – but this place, this earthly place brings me back to me, to a core that I hadforget. The stones make me care again, connect and contribute to my creative process. I cannot compete with the millions of knitting patterns pushed out into the world that are for sale, nor do I want to but I know that this Kaleidoscope pattern is a very good one.
When I meet the millstones and the old stone trough, I knit, I eat, drink tea and I am grateful for my thoughts. I have had 3 ideas to put togethere with my Tree and star new sleeve and you will have to wait until I have finally made my choice.
I am heading to an artist residency at the base of Mount Fuji for the whole of December and I am working on a piece called between Silk and Paper, drawing on the Japanese concepts of Ma and Mono No Aware – You can read about it here
I’ve been working on the materiality of the pieces
But for now, I am very much enjoying my new knitted jumper – you could too, use your stash, make it yours, go out into the countryside and knit
For the last couple of weeks, I have had some very hurtful, negative, comments about my latest knitting design, from women on social media and in groups – often with multiple exclamation marks about their oppinion about my Kaleidoscope pattern not being size inclusive.
My design was made for me, lovingly and creatively. It took 4 months to knit and design and write, alter, chart, photograph, teach the test knitter and promote the pattern. I put the pattern out honestly, with care and great attention to detail yet I have been constantly hammered about the pattern not being size inclusive because it’s one size up to 44 chest.
To make it every size in this pattern, would be a completely new pattern for each size and a test knit also. It is made up of 44 stitch repeat so to make it work, it would either go up or down in increments of 44 stitches which affects the alignment, where the V neck sits, the exgtra decreases on the armpits and shoulders and then the size of the sleeve would alter each time to fit. This is not just a quick adjustment, each size would be a completely new pattern and test knit. Size inclusive is not a law. It is a design choice if that cannot happen. It would take 18 months to write 4 patterns and do 4 test knits.
But my pattern is just one person’s creative vision – Mine. It is, however, inclusive for boys and my friend shows that in the photo taken this afternoon. It’s a beautiful knit and I’m stopped all the time when I wear it – A little like, ‘that’s a nice puppy’, kinda stopping to stroke and touch.
The negative comments and exclamation marks that I have received this past two weeks have not knocked my confidence in this piece but has made me want to stop sharing, stop teaching online colour work skills and stop designing – so, I put a notice to reflec this on a Stranded Knits facebook group and we broke facebook posts in 10 minutes with over 100 positive comments (just one little snidey comment)
The post that I put on the Facebook group this afternoon re balanced me. The women were supportive and really understood how social media forums are a space for anyone to say anything they like but would not say in a conversation face to face. They were all calm and helpful because I said that I would not answer any negative comments. It went wild. Over 60 positive comments and my responses in about 10 minutes until FB stopped after the 100th.
here are a few of the comments:-
1 Size inclusivity really matters. But as someone who advocates for consumer rights, I find it’s most productive to focus our advocacy on major brands and big-name designers. People may not understand that for indie designers, scaling up complex patterns like this is indeed similar to writing a new pattern in each size—meaning it’s just not feasible. I’m sorry that as an indie designer with just a couple jumper patterns available, you’ve been caught up in these dynamics—but I hope you also understand the advocates’ perspectives and feelings. It’s such a challenging systemic issue.
2 I find that designing sweaters and publishing good patterns is just not worth my time. The return (number of patterns sold) vs. the investment (knit first test, find and supervise test knitters, write pattern, revise pattern, photograph item) is just not workable. Socks are a better return for me as far as writing patterns. I knit sweaters for myself (size 3X) or my loved ones occasionally.
I agree. The wool for me and the test knitter was £200 to cover everything that’s without all the hundreds and hundreds of hours
3 It gets a bit exhausting when the dreamer gets questioned on why wasn’t it the dream for everyone?
I get for plain patterns why some get ouchy that it’s not in many sizes, but for cable work, stranded work: it’s a lot of math and a lot of testing and even then is NOT a guarantee that your construction “works” on a body, even if it matches the inches. Hang and drape and look are very subjective. And then you, the designer, is who gets yelled at because they did make it in size 84” and they spent “a lot of time and a lot of money on this amount of yarn” and then the sleeve didn’t set right “on them”.
People as a whole: if ANY knit pattern doesn’t suit YOU, just edit it. Tinker with it. Frog it and start again. And by the time you’ve redone your sweater five times to make it work “for you” realize the designer would’ve had to do “that” a million fold, if they wanted to make the pattern include every conceivable body. You’re basically expecting a masterclass in custom knitting fitting, for an $8 pattern.
In all, there were too many comments and we were not allowed to add any more – they were automatically turned off.
Here is a beautiful Shetland comment from a lady who also designs –
Your hard work. Your pattern. Your design publication. Your artist license Folk can choose tae enjoy, support & purchase…or scroll on. Dinna pay da moaners (trolls) ony heed & dinna respond tae dem. I received a message fae some een telling me I didna hay tae write in Shetland dialect – as du can see, I stopped, joost fir dem…nah
Dinna stop being YOU Tracey Doxey and keep lovin’ whit you create
I felt stronger after the supportive comments and I will not stop being me but this post, I think, is about the hurt that women cause women on social media when they do not have an informed opinion – it is a dig.
here is the pattern. and yes, the additional sleeve is an extra pattern because it is a design in itself – and here also is the test knit image with the Tree and Star Sleeves.
tracey doxey 