Finished Object: "Gray" Cabled Vest

Pattern: Gray Blue Cabled Vest from Men Who Knit and the Dogs Who Love Them, size 46-inch chest + added stitches to make a size 48-inch chest
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, double stranded, 65% wool, 35% silk, color 10, 9+ hanks (I think I could have finished it with 9 hanks if I had ripped out my rather large swatch)
Needles: US size 8 (5 mm) and 10 (6 mm)
Recipient: Peter
Cat: Elly
Errata: Okay, there are a lot of errors in this pattern. I emailed my corrections to Annie Modesitt but she has not yet placed all of them on her website. So, I’ll detail the mistakes that I found here.

Chart Errors
1. Charts A and C have several rows outlined in red to indicate that those rows are worked twice. The corresponding rows on Chart B are not outlined in red but they should also be repeated.

2. Charts A and C have two sets of rows marked 1–2. The first of these rows are set-up rows for the cable pattern. Chart B does not have similar set-up rows. If you work the set-up rows in Charts A and C, be sure to add set-up rows for Chart B. Or you can omit the set-up rows in Charts A and C. However, if you do work the set-up rows remember that you do NOT repeat the set-up rows when you repeat the rest of the cable pattern.

3. There are empty boxes in Chart A, set-up row 2. The stitches are the same as the stitches below them.

4. In Chart C, Row 56 there are four stitches that are marked as purl stitches that should be marked as knit stitches. They are in the 7th, 8th, 11th, and 12th boxes from the left.

Pattern Errors
5. Front Neck Shaping: The second instruction says to “BO (#) sts at neck edge every row 3 times.” You can’t do that. You’re working back and forth. So you can only BO stitches at the beginning of every other row. (The next instructions says to “BO (#) sts at neck edge every other row,” so the first instruction is not just a typo.) To correct this, I took the total number of stitches to be bound off on the three rows, divided that number by 2 and bound off the resulting number of stitches on the next two alternate rows.

6. Front Shoulder Shaping: Instructions say to begin shoulder shaping when the fronts measure “X inches” from the start of the armhole shaping. Unfortunately, “X inches” is not equal to the measurement where the back shoulder shaping started. The value for X is wrong. I used the measurement value from the back.

7. Buttonhole Row: The number of stitches don’t add up for the two sizes that I checked. I simply made evenly spaced buttonholes.

Comments: Despite the errors, I really liked knitting this pattern. The cables are great—each cable “repeat” is 96 rows tall. Yes, you read that correctly: ninety-six rows. Here’s a photo of the back after I finished the first “repeat.” I put repeat in quotes because the repeat is never fully repeated.

I would say more about the vest, but this post is already insanely long thanks to the errata.

But hey, designers could you avoid put colors in the names of your patterns? We all like using different colors. It’s annoying to hold up a blue vest and say, “This is the Gray Cabled Vest” and have people look at you funny.

Scout eventually needed to get into the photo action. I love the expression on Peter’s face.