Does this ever happen to you?

You have this really awesome idea for a blog post. You think about it and get it all figured out.

You even get part of it done.

Then life happens.

The blog post doesn't happen. It was great inside your head, but getting down on electrons is just never going to happen.

Remember the Diary of a Super Secret Project Part I? I had this great idea that I would write a blog post or two about the process of making a hand-knit item from the perspective of the item. I'd do it in two parts and make the readers guess at the end what they thought the thing would look like before I posted the finished object picture.

Well, that was in January. I got the first half written while I was working on the project. Somehow, the project got finished and gifted, but the other installments of the diary never got written. And all the ideas that I had for the other parts?

Sucked into the blackhole that is my brain. Bummer.

It's now been almost a month since the FO was gifted, and the other parts just are not going to get written. Sometimes you just have to know when to let go (or so my yoga teacher used to say). So do me a favor, go read the post I linked to above. It's ok. I'll wait.

Did you read it? Good. Now, take a wild guess as to what it might be. Go on. No one's looking.

You don't even have to write it down!

So, do you think you know what the super secret project is? Now it's time to find out!

HWJF likes sweater vests, so I thought I'd make him one for a Valentine's Day present. I also know his favorite color is orange, so off I went to the Knitpicks catalog and picked out 9 skeins of this yarn. I ended up having an entire skein leftover plus some small parts of two others, but better to have too much than not enough!

To keep it all a secret, I measured the hell out of another vest he likes to wear that he left at my apartment one time. Using those measurements on the trusty book mentioned above, I picked out a v-neck pattern that I thought would fit with a few minor alterations. I wanted something simple, but not too plain, so I added a simple 8-row cable up the front. While I was afraid that this would pull the front out of proportion with the back, it didn't turn out that way. The blocking might have helped that.

I worked on this during train rides and times I was home alone and managed to pull it off without him suspecting a thing! His look of shock and confusion when he opened it was well worth all the sneaking around. I'm pretty pleased with how it all worked out and I think he likes it too. Here's a couple more pics just because...




Many thanks to HWJF for putting up with me making him get dressed up on a weekend for 5 mins. so we could take blog pictures in 15 degree weather outside! What I won't make my loved ones do to serve my public!

So there you have it. Not as cool a presentation as originally planned, but there it is.

You may go laugh yourself silly at my stupidity now.