My 'mistakes' are your gems 💎 of knowledge 💡

In between figuring out all the holiday events, how to make sure you all know about what's going on, sharing our gift guides, etc., I sneak in a few minutes to knit. I am loving how my Virginia Top is coming along and I have a few things to share about my project:

• I'm making Joji Locatelli's Virginia Top as a vest to wear over a specific dress. The pattern link is at the yarn page: The Uncommon Thread Posh Fingering.
  • side note: I did a Ravelry search using the criteria:  Vest, Sleeveless Top, V-neck, Fingering, 1 color. 
• It's knit top down and once it became time to join under the arms I realized the arm holes weren't deep enough to fit over the deep arm holes of the dress. I'm really glad that I thought about it! If I had thought about it earlier, I would have done the increases under the arms more slowly but I didn't want to rip back. So I just knit a few more inches before joining under the arms. Right now it might appear that I have an odd shape under the arms, but I am confident that when I pick up the stitches under the arm it will even out (enough, especially for under the arm)
• The design has little bobbles in it - I did them on the back, just at the top of the shoulder and then I substituted them for purl stitches after that for the rest of the back - no one, including me was going to miss those. I am using different color Flower Stitch Markers to remind me which pattern repeats are the front and which are the back.
• There was a time I needed to tink back though. When it came time to join and knit in the round I saw after a few rows that my tension was different between knitting flat and knitting in the round - it is true that the making of a purl stitch yields a somewhat taller stitch. The texture didn't look the same, so I tinked back and now that I am knitting in the round I am using a needle one size larger.
• Since the cables in the patterns are just one stitch, I am doing those without a cable needle, it makes things less "fiddly"
• My yarn is The Uncommon Thread, Posh and it so lovely to knit with! The pattern link is at the yarn page.