As most of you know by now, my knitting time is so precious to me – firstly as it is very limited, secondly because with time I’ve become slow. With this I noticed a change in my focus, where the end result used to be the main goal, it is now all about the process, the knitting in itself, and so everything I do, I truly and honestly have to enjoy – and if it turns out that I don’t, well then I frog with no second thoughts about it.

This one though, I mean with me it always starts with love at first sight, but with this one I could totally see the end result and the joy I would feel wearing it. I’d been sniffing the vest craze for a while, I just think they look really good on most and my inner eye felt I would feel pretty in one myself, and then there is the no sleeves benefit – a vest is basically a sweater project where you skip the sleeves right!

I was not the only one falling in love with the Tessellated Vest by Andrea Mowry (link to designer’s website), so did George and we cast on about at the same time, as the story normally goes, he finished his before I was even getting to split for arm holes. But him strutting around in his version looking so handsome just gave that extra motivation, and the last half of my project went so much quicker than what I had expected. 

Noticed I mentioned ‘version’? Now this is the thing I really wanted to stress with this blog post. 

Classic straight forward design with attention to simple but tailored details – it is most definitely pretty, but what makes it interesting is the mosaic texture. As I so often stress here in the shop – there are no rules in knitting other than to always make sure it gives you joy! I’m a huge advocate for creative wildness, go where your heart leads you and swap things around. Yes, there are certain frameworks you would like to stay within, I mean it isn’t necessary to go all the way back to inventing the wheel, do rely on the knowledge of those who’s gone before you (this is also where great advice from your local yarn shop comes in ehrm…). My experience is that as long as you stay close in terms of weight as in thickness, and weight as in meter per grams (meaning fibre resemblance as different fibres vary hugely in heaviness and create fabrics that will behave very differently coming to drape, stretch and wear) you can easily substitute a yarn for another.

You use three different colours in roughly a sports weight for this mosaic colourwork, and Andrea’s original is done in two wool blend and one fluffy yarn types. George stayed true to the original, diving into his stash to find his yarns. Last Autumn I started a sweater project, where I fell quickly out of love with the design and frogged back in no time, but still passionately in love with the yarn I’ve been searching and lusting for the perfect project for said yarn, when the Tessellated Vest entered the scene – I knew I’d found my perfect match using the same yarn for all three colours! 

My deets for the Tessellated are:
Size 2
3x 100g, 1 hank in each colour.
Yarn Wensleydale by Black Elephant
Colours Knit with attitude, Tizian, Hello Yellow