Gallery: Fake Latvian Braid + Pinstriping--a vest project featuring both kinds of added-color techniques.

 FAKE LATVIAN BRAID (FLB) and PINSTRIPING techniques have occupied the last several TECHknitting posts.  Today's post is the grand finale on these subjects: a gallery view of a plain vest, decorated only with FLB and pinstriping.

...decorated only with FLB and two-color pinstripe...
...zipper + "beautiful" facing...

The project includes a no-sew zipper added via the "beautiful facing" technique, both from posts of several years ago.

This vest is in no way remarkable for fabric design--there are no geometric patterns to command the attention, no carefully-selected color schemes resulting from the true artist's eye--I haven't got that kind of gift.

basic and boxy
(but decorated)

The pattern itself was scrounged together from various projects and is not remarkable for construction techniques either--there is no waist-shaping, no darts. This is a basic, boxy garment.

In sum, what we have here is an ordinary-looking beige vest knit in basic stockinette. It is the finishing techniques alone which distinguish this from a standard-issue garment. (Well, that and the fact that it is the length I want, a color that goes with many different shirts I own, plus the zip-closure I prefer, but knitters quickly get used to these sorts of advantages, I believe.)

I'm showing this vest today not as a pattern, but as a sort of a mini-gallery to demo FLB and pinstriping combined in a real world project. As you see, the FLB trim was added around the bottom and neck, and the vertical pinstriping around the zipper area.

no flipping!

One thing I really want to showcase: just as I promised in the original FLB post, the FLB around the vest-bottom stops the bottom edge from flipping.  FLB really does combat edge flip, and is worth considering for that reason alone.

(Note that there are three rows of two-color FLB, topped by a single row of 1-color FLB, for four total FLB rows.)

Even when being worn, no flipping!

Zipper worn open, showing the two-color pinstriping from the inside:

zipper detail from inside

Another point of interest: the collar is faced, and where the outside of the collar folds to turn into the facing, I ran two lines of purl for a beautiful fold-line. (This is called a "welt.") Between the two I worked a one-color pinstripe in dark brown.  Unlike the two-color decoration elsewhere, this one-color decoration is much more subtle--it nearly hides.  Yet it pleases me greatly and makes the collar look more finished.

collar and collar facing

Well, this was the grand finale for the added-color TECHniques of Fake Latvian Braid and Pinstriping. Here is a look at the back of this vest, as we say goodbye to this topic.

An everyday garment with a touch of decoration

The next few posts will address a different form of added-color work: duplicate stitch.  (Don't groan! I know duplicate stitching is usually clunky, but there are some nifty things you can do with duplicate stitch, things you really can't do any other way. So see you soon with a bunch of new tricks!)

Until next time, good knitting.
--TK

One last look