How I got my groove back-

It's been an entire MONTH since I finished anything. Dang. Last Sunday, I dragged my Berroco Air from the yarn vault, and sat down with the latest Cast On to make a vest. I HATED the stitch pattern...I thought it was entirely too much work for the product result. I tweaked it, and VOILA! My first F/O in a month. 'Bout damned time. I used four balls of Air, and it's for DMIL. I was going to carry Crest of the Wave lace all the way up, but with the arm and neckline decreases, I got my butt kicked. It was the first time I used an edging cast-off. I did a three needle bind off at the shoulders, but extended the garter edging around the back neck. It was pretty easy, and beats the heck out of casting on, picking up, standing on my head, or complicated finishing. I would do that again.

The good thing about a F/O is that it gets me revved up to make something else. Guess I should go do four rows of Wren, huh? That would surely dampen my enthusiasm.

Methodology:

4 balls Berroco Air, color Karma (brown/orange/green). Sized for a 12-14 P. Work it straight on a long circ, I used a 10, which is a 10.5 or 11 for the rest of the world. Gauge of stockinette-about 13 st per 4".

Cast on 127 stitches. DO not join, this is worked edge to edge. Slip the first stitch of every row.

Work the first 3 and last 3 stitches in G/S, and the middle in Crest of the Wave (BW 1). (I varied the garter ridge. ) When you have 4 (5 if you are not knitting for a petite) repeats done, start setting up for underarm cast off by putting in garter stitch at the underarm point..about 11 stitches. At the same time, start decreasing for a front V neck 1 stitch every other row (SSK and K2tog, as appropriate).

After you have 3 garter ridges at the underarm, and on a RS, work across, and cast off 5 at the underarm. Leave 3 stitches on either side of the cast off to work in GS as a border. Slow down the rate of neck decrease and begin decreases at both sides of the underarm cast off. I worked in this manner til I had about 15 stitches on each front, and about 45-ish on the back. When the underarm was deep enough (about 9" for a petite, more for avg or tall), I did a three needle bind off from the outside to the inside shoulder, LEAVING the 3 stitch front borders open. I worked a garter stitch (perpendicular?) border around the back neck, and ended when I came to the other three open border stitches.