Challenge Yarn - Becomes a Challenge Vest Part 2

I decided to knit the vest on 4.0 mm (US 6) vest, and since size wasn't critical I guessed that my gauge would be around 5 sts/in with the Patons. The pink being the dominant colour that I had was going to be the main colour with the purple and the challenge being accents. I decided to modify the pattern to be knit in the round. According to the Knitters Handy Book of Patterns for this gauge I cast on 128 sts and started off in k2p2 ribbing. After 4 rounds of pink, I did one round of purple, one more of pink and then the ribbing was done. My plan was to have a some stripes of colour below the separation for the front and the back. I guestimated that the stripes that I wanted to do would be 2". All is good so far.
I start knitting the stripes, I pause..

I don't like the colours together - the pink is too light of a pink to balance the purple and the challenge yarn. I also haven't used very much yarn - there is no way that this vest is going to take 550 m. I keep knitting, I sit back and the v-neck is done, the back of the vest is done. I kept thinking I was going to like the colours if I continued to knit.

Well I don't, the vest is blocking and waiting for ribbing around the neck and armholes (I am going to repeat the strip on the ribbing). I am also glad that I didn't knit this vest for a specific child as there is no way this vest fits a 2-4 yo, I have several nephews (and 1 niece) in this age bracket - it won't fit any of them. Maybe it will fit a 6 year old. Oh well, lots of kids in Mongolia, and it is wool and will keep the warm, it should fit one of them.

So what is a knitter to do? Well I think the major problem is the pink colour (I was worried about this from the start), I didn't use enough of the challenge to get to the pink area in that ball, what I was hoping for balance. Halfway through knitting - it dawned on me that I could have kool-aid dyed the pink a red colour and would have gotten a better balance (next time).

I still want something that I can take to the guilds December meeting, to show what I did with the challenge yarn. So I think another vest is in order. I still have around 200 yrds of purple left, which should work for a vest. I haven't yet decided whether I will cast on fewer stitches or keep the same size of vest.

My camera is being a major PIA, it has refused to take a picture for the past week, today it decided to take photos but is refusing to focus. Since I am discussing colour balance - you get to see these crappy photos to look at the colours.







Stashed with: challenge, guild, dulaan