I bought this fiber while visiting relations in Indiana, spun it up as a 3-ply, and in a search for appropriate patterns I found this useful swing vest, which I started the day before i left town to drive up to Nanaimo, B.C., for a dragonboat festival. The colorway, “Submarine,” seemed like a good choice for such an adventure. A 5 hour drive to Port Angeles, then 90 minutes on the ferry the next morning, then another nearly 2 hours to get to Nanaimo, then reverse all that on the way back, all added up to enough knitting time to get at least halfway through the project.

I’m making this a bit longer than the pattern, because I have plenty of yarn and I want it to cover my backside. I did the middle short-row section twice to give the fronts enough shaping for the longer length.

There was plenty of yarn left for sleeves. I made the first sleeve full length, then started the second to see if I had enough for two long sleeves. Ended up unraveling part of the first sleeve to knit on to the second and both are 3/4 length. To make the sleeve I put the sleeve stitches on the circular needle, picked up six stitches at the underarm, marked the center and knitted straight for 3 inches, then decreased on both sides of the center marker every 2 inches. This gave me a taper that fit my arms and still allowed enough ease for shirt sleeves underneath.

Started on on excursion to dragon boat races in Nanaimo, finished on a trip a month later to Wallowa Lake for another dragon boat race. And so the name.