The vest, at long last, is done!!

So my boyfriend did actually send the yarn and it arrived just yesterday morning. I had to fight the urge to skip class & finish the vest, but of course I ended up being good & going to school. Today, though, I had no classes (college students don't believe in Friday classes, didn't you know?), so I set to work on knitting the last couple rows, learning & working the 3-needle bind-off (a little fiddly at first but SO MUCH better than sewing seams!), weaving in the 6 thousand or so ends, and then sewing up those two little side seams.

Looking at those seams now, they do seem little -- but they took me hours! It didn't help that the yarn (which until then had been perfectly lovely) kept breaking while I was doing it. There was a lot of swearing and by the end I'd concluded that (a) there are not words strong enough in this language to truly express my hatred of sewing seams and (b) any & all garments I make in the future will be knit in the round! My grandma told me over the summer that she actually stopped knitting because she hated sewing seams so much. At the time it seemed like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me, but now I'm thinking she might've had a point...

Anyway, the seams unfortunately look a bit like they were sewn by a mentally challenged chimpanzee with a drug habit, but I pretty much love it regardless:



Better pictures will come very soon (sorry for the dirty mirror!), but I was excited just to document it. At some point I will probably still crochet the recommended edging around the neck & armholes, but most likely not until after holiday knitting is out of the way. Also I should block it but I can't stand the thought of making my room smell like a wet sheep when it's much too cold to open a window...

I'm very relieved to have this done, because for the next twenty-odd days I need to throw myself in to holiday knitting! I'm pretty sure of everything I need to make, but last night I was talking to one of the few friends for whom I wasn't planning to knit and when I asked him what he wanted his only response was, "Make me something out of yarn!" Sigh. What he really wants is a pair of mittens, so I'm on the hunt for a good (and preferably free) dude's mitten pattern. Recommendations would be appreciated!