It's Got a Bird on It

I'll admit that this video almost ruined my love of all things with birds on.  Almost.  It's certainly made me more self-conscious of my love of things avian, but it hasn't kept me from being attracted to them.

Like I was first drawn to this vest when I saw it on Ravelry.  It turned up on my pattern suggestion list because I've made other designs by Carol Sunday.  At the time, the pattern was only available in Making magazine.  It's in issue #2, Fauna.  Making magazine is my new favorite!  It includes sewing and other needlework and crafts, even a recipe or two, and knitting.  It's beautiful and inspiring.

The original vest in the magazine was in a solid medium brown.  I'm not much of a brown person, so thought I'd try a gray or blue-gray.  I wanted the vest to be in a neutral, bird-like color.  I bought this yarn when I was in The Dalles, Oregon, for the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival a few years ago. It's Bumblebirch Forage yarn, a pretty standard 220 yards in 100 grams superwash wool.  The colorway is Fog.  Now that I'm finished, I wish I'd chosen a more solid colored yarn.  I think the birds and their branches (in the bottom and lapel border) get lost in the variegation.

But I do love the details of this pattern.  The first thing you knit are the two i-cord ties (there's one you can't see inside the vest.  When you get up to the place they're attached, you knit them right into the garment.  The shoulders are shaped with short rows and then bound off together.  The i-cord around the lapel turns both the inside and outside corners nicely.  Speaking of details, looking at these pictures, I think I might try lowering the loops the ties fasten to.  Would that make the vest more flattering? 

My vest matches a necklace my mom gave me some years ago for my birthday.  It's made by Figs and Ginger and still available.  Maybe things ARE better with a bird on it.

A note for others who might make this vest.  The pattern in Making doesn't show the repeat of the bird pattern correctly -- it's a 20 stitch repeat, with a single stitch extra to start (instead of a 21 stitch repeated pattern).  I only learned this part-way through the knitting, when I noticed it on the Ravelry page for this pattern.  I decided not to let it matter, but I think the birds might fit better into the design if you did it correctly.  Weirdly, it's not in the errata on the Making site. 

Nepali Bird Vest

• designed by Carol Sunday
• Bumblebirch Forage yarn, 4 skeins, 220 yards/100 g skein, superwash wool
• US 6 and 5 needles
• on my Ravelry page