River's vest from Firefly

This is the crocheted vest River Tam wore in "Jaynestown" and "Objects in Space".



It's for my sister, who's bigger than I am, so it's too loose on me.

It was a surprisingly fast project; if not for a few false starts, and alternating it with Dad's present for a while, I think I could have finished it in two weeks, easily, one if I'd been hurried.

It used well under two skeins of Knitpicks Color Your Own.

The pattern for the big squares with stars, that make up the sides, has been added to this entry: http://www.livejournal.com/users/dragoncrafter/20094.html

Attaching the two of them together is not that hard, but writing up directions to do so is. A nice set of instructions (with pictures, even) is here. My notes are below. If you write up instructions, leave a comment on this post and I will add a link.

After I'd made two of them, I added five extra rows of (tr, ch 1) mesh to a side of one of them, then worked a row that consisted of working *tr in space on one square, tr in space on the other square* to join, which makes it look like there are seven extra rows.

Then I added four fishnet rectangles: one on each front, one on the back, and one around the bottom. I used ch-7 loops, and fastened them down every other mesh along the square, and in every row of the extra mesh in the back.

Every row is too closely spaced, relative to every other mesh. I think I should have skipped a row or two. But it seems to have blocked out fine.

The first triple-crochet round in the stars bothers me. It cups up a little bit. In wool, I can block it out, but I don't think it would look too good unblocked.

On the last row of fishnet on the top, I joined the front rectangles to the back, and I shortened the ch-7 loops down to ch-3 loops across the bits of the top where I wasn't joining it, to hold it in place.

Then along the bottom and the sides, I did five rows of *ch 3, 2 dc* mesh trim. Then I wove in ends, wet-blocked, and I was done.