Anna Vest pattern, now available!

Anna Vest pattern, now available!

I’m so happy to report that my Anna Vest pattern — originally designed for Tolt’s book Farm to Needle: Stories of Wool back in 2015 — is finally available for standalone download through Ravelry. Originally inspired by a vintage men’s pattern from WWII, this cute little waistcoat pairs classic style with modern shaping in a versatile layering piece. As those who’ve already knitted it can attest, it is an excellent project for learning garment finishing techniques such as inset pockets and a sewn-on, 1×1 button band. But for this revised edition, I’ve added the options to omit the pocket(s) and/or work a simpler, quicker, picked-up garter-stitch button band instead. The original sewn-on band (on the grey sample) is quite polished, and has very tidy buttonholes as well, but it is a project and a challenge unto itself. It’s totally worth every minute, but life is also short oftentimes, and the picked-up version (on the plum sample) is perfectly lovely and way less daunting. So I approve of you doing it either way! And since many people have knitted this vest more than once (myself included), there’s always the option to do both and compare.

A few things to note:

– There was a cut-and-paste error in the layout of the book, with an errata note on the Ravelry pattern page. That error does not exist in the standalone PDF pattern, so the erratum only applies if you’re knitting from the 2015 Farm to Needle book version of the pattern. (Hopefully this 2018 PDF version is error-free!)

– We did an Anna Vest Knitalong a few years ago, so there’s all kinds of additional tips and info if you take a scroll back through that, including in-depth tutorials for how to knit the inset pockets and how to attach the sewn-on button band (if you choose that option).

– There are 6 sizes to choose from in the pattern, and I want to emphasize that this vest looks great on all body types. In fact, I mentioned when it first published that I had seen its predecessor (in 38″ circumference) on a whole slew of women at Stitches South and it looked amazing on every single one of them. When the pattern published, Tolt posted pics on their blog of the whole staff wearing the size 38 sample, and you can see what I mean!

– And thank you so much to my friends at Kelbourne Woolens for providing the yarn, Germantown, for the new plum-colored sample (which is officially called Rhododendron).

I hope you love the pattern, and I can’t wait to see what you make of it! For existing projects, see the #annavest and #annavestkal feeds on Instagram and the finished projects on Ravelry.

Anna Vest pattern, now available!

p.s. I was really excited to shoot the plum vest and waxed plum Field Bag together, and meant to release them on the same day. In the few days since the bag released, we’ve been totally wiped out of them. There are still some at or en route to a few of our stockists — most notably, there will be some in Harrisville Designs‘ booth at Rhinebeck this weekend — and we will have one more small batch at Fringe Supply Co. in early November, after which we have a fabric shortage problem until spring!

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Waxed plum Field Bag + Anna Vest update

Waxed plum Field Bag + butterscotch Porter Bin + Anna Vest

This was me last month, wearing the original Anna Vest and knitting the new Anna Vest while “modeling” for today’s debut of the waxed plum Field Bag! Can you even take your eyes off how gorgeous this all is — and especially that plum Field and butterscotch Porter situation? This is officially my new favorite color combo.

I can finally tell you this story: I’d been having a hard time deciding on a color for the new vest, and then I discovered that my friends at Kelbourne Woolens’ newest yarn, Germantown, came in a color that’s a perfect match for the Field Bag that was in production at the time. That felt like fate to me, and I couldn’t wait to see them together. (I do love a matching Field Bag and WIP situation!) The waxed plum Field Bag is available today at Fringe Supply Co. and at our stockists around the globe. The pattern, however, needs a few more days. I did finish the vest and we shot it on Monday, but the pattern itself is not quite finished, so look for that next week!

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to pull together a Weekend Reads list for Slow Fashion October this week — too many plates spinning, for real — but I’ll hope to share stuff on @slowfashionoctober over the weekend, so keep an eye on that. And I’ll aim for a mega list for next weekend. I also shared a peek into my actual, physical closet on IG this week and am hoping to start the clean-out challenge this weekend (if I get the vest pattern done, lol) — I’d love to see yours, too! Or hear how it’s going if you’ve already started.

Happy weekend! Thank you for spending part of your week here—

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Photos by Hannah Messinger for Fringe Supply Co.