Here’s the second project from the Nihon Vogue class.

This photo doesn’t show how wide the vest is around my hips. In fact I was holding some of the extra ease behind my back with my right hand.

Judging ease has got to be one of the hardest parts of this class. When we drew this pattern we were told to add our desired ease. At the time I wasn’t sure what my desired ease should be and I don’t think I was the only student with this dilemma. I couldn’t help but think, if only I had measured all my favorite sweaters before hand.

Oh well, I guess it’s a good learning experience.

Now I know from experience that an item made from sport weight wool doesn’t need as much ease as something knitted in a worsted weight wool and I’ve got to be careful when adjusting the pattern to fit my hips.

Jean suggested that our side seam could be a straight vertical line between the armhole to the hips or if we have hips that are larger than the bust, add ease at the hips, draw a line from the hips towards the waist line and then draw a straight line from the waist to the armhole. I took the second option when I should have taken the first.

For my figure I think it’s best to measure the circumference of my torso where the garment will fall, add a tiny bit of ease and then draw my side seam line straight up to the armhole. At least that’s what I’ll do with the v-neck pullover.

Here’s a photo of the next project in the queue, a round-neck pullover. It’s ready for the arms to be sewn to the body, ribbing added to the collar and finishing touches to the ribbing on the arms and waist. We’ll be covering that in the next class.

By the way, this Panda cotton yarn is a pain to use when sewing side seams. The twist easily falls apart during seaming and the individual untwisted strands tend to bunch together into unruly clumps making seaming very unpleasant task.

Oh, and for those interested in that stitch pattern in my last post, it’s from 1000 Knitting Patterns Book.