Hourglass Vest

Have you been wondering whether my crazy sweater-construction idea with the shaped cable panels was going to work at all? Yeah, me too. :)

It works...



Here's a side view (impossible to take this one without distorting the fabric of the front and back rather a lot):



Here I am looking smug, perhaps because instead of a handful of pieces I suddenly have a functional Aran vest. Or perhaps because it was windy out and I was squinting.



If you look at the sides, you can see I got bitten a little by the rows of plain reverse stockinette stitch on the side panels, which have a larger gauge than the cabling and caused the ribbing there to actually pull in. Though that's annoying, I think it'll block right out when I wash this and is not worth fixing in the knitting, at this point.



Now, onto the next huge challenge -- sleeves. I left a generous armscye in this sweater body, which make it very comfortable as a vest (I'm still wearing it as I type this!) but now need to be accommodated.