A Hobbitish vest

Quite a while back, I bought the "e book" Hobbit Knits. (I don't have an e-reader; I've bought a few knitting pattern e-books, either because they were ONLY out as e-books, or they were much less expensive. I've only ordered through Ravelry so they're stored as .pdf files in my "library" over there).

It has a number of interesting patterns but by far my favorite was the vest called "Pocketses," which is designed to resemble Bilbo Baggins' vest. It's a mock-double-breasted vest (the second row of buttons is non functional) with small pockets that are presumably large enough to hold a ring with strange script on it....

As it turned out, I had the right yarn in my stash for it - one weekend when JoAnn's had a really good sale on Paton's Classic Wool, I bought a bunch (all of the dye lot they had of two different colors). I used sort of a spruce green for the vest. I was afraid at first I was going to run short, but of four balls of the yarn, I believe I used just over 3. (Perhaps about 700 yards?)

I finished the vest over Christmas break. (It took me a while to get around to photographing it, it seemed like I either never had time to, or I was wearing the wrong color top and didn't feel like changing)



I'm really happy with it. The pattern is nicely designed and it fits well. (I made the 41" size. I might have been able to go a bit snugger, I don't know). I like that there are waist decreases to shape the waist; it makes the vest look more shapely and it makes the wearer look a little better than a straight-up-and-down vest might.



I also think I did a better job of picking up and knitting the armbands and frontbands on this one than I have on any sweater I've made. As you do something more times, you get better at it. (I didn't exactly follow the stitch count given; I think for the armbands it would have been a bit many? If I remember correctly).

I also did the buttonholes differently, more like the typical "simple" buttonhole that you do on cardigans. I had to make them larger as the buttons I bought were larger (they were 3/4", rather than 9/16", as the pattern called for). But the buttons were ones I really liked:



These were a Sewing Studio purchase. In fact, I finished the body parts of the sweater a day or so before their New Year's sale, so I blocked the sweater and then held off on knitting on the front bands until I HAD the buttons, so I could do the size-adjustment on the buttonholes if it became necessary (as it did).

The buttons were a little pricey but I tend to feel that if you've put in all the time and work to make a sweater, it's worth it to hunt down nice buttons.

It makes a good warm vest. I wore it a few times during the "Polar Vortex" days up there, a couple times underneath another cardigan....