Pattern: Pembroke Vest by Kirsten Kapur.
Yarn: TFA Green Label Aran Weight yarn in Lotus (one of a kind).
Ravelry project page here.
Ok, let me be perfectly honest with you: normally I would make sure that Rowan was wearing a cute, coordinating outfit for an FO shoot and I would tidy up and make it seem like I just snapped some shots of him playing, looking picture perfect in our always clean home. That is not what I've done this time. This time I've opted to keep it real, very real. It's freezing cold here and he needed to be wearing an extra layer so I plopped this vest on over his mismatched pjs, knowing very well that it was too big for him but wanting him to wear it at least once this season. He was in a good mood and we were having fun, so I figured it was as good a time as any to take some FO shots of his new vest.
This vest was the first of 4 new toddler knits I've made for Rowan in the past few weeks. I laid out a bit of a game plan for them here and then went ahead and added the 4th item when 2 of the 3 I had planned came out too big or too small… and I'm supposed to be a professional!? When I finished this vest I put it on my little guy and realized immediately that it was a bit too big. The pattern doesn't really leave that much room for customizing the length of the body since the best detail is in the way the cables separate at the neck framing that perfect 'V'. Looking at it now I suppose I could have stopped a couple of rows sooner, but with the whole thing featuring cabled ribbing it's also very stretchy horizontally and it feels like the type of knit that will really grow with a child. Leaving the extra length means that next fall, when he's a foot taller (I'm only kind of exaggerating) it will hopefully still have enough length to fit him, and I know that it will have the width with all that built in stretch. And for now it looks kind of like a funny medieval tunic worn over pjs. Win win!
I made very few, very minor mods in my process. I opted to knit it in the round up until the underarms rather than flat and I added a central double decrease to the front of the collar ribbing to make a crisper v-neck. I also mirrored the cables and in doing so ended up switching the orientation of a few of the centre cables as well to keep the whole thing flowing.
The Lotus colourway is a perpetual favourite of mine. It reminds me of a lighter, softer, greyer Lucky Penny. It's a colourway that we've featured a few times in Etsy updates and the more time I spend with it the more I think that I can't live without it in the permanent collection.
And naturally, what FO shoot is complete without a pancake cameo and a moment where papa uses baby to do some weight lifting?
