With last Friday bringing Sprocket’s wrench to a place where seaming was all that remained, I needed to keep going and come up with a new portable part of the project.  I knew I’d be going to see a movie that night and was loath to give up on the possible knitting time, so I hurried to sketch up a quick plan of attack.

My working model of Sprocket is going to be a mix of the original (above) and this drawing I found on DeviantArt:

I contacted the artist, DizPlicity, on Facebook, and got permission to work from her design.  Yay!

In both cases Sprocket wears a blue ‘vest’ over black long sleeves and black pants.  A few weeks ago I went to Value Village and picked up those two items, so I tried on the top over the bra I planned to wear and took a few measurements.

The first thing I realized was that knitting the vest in the round would not work without some serious math.  I have a lot more…uh… mass in the front than I do in my back, and simply measuring around my body and dividing in 2 would result in a front that pulls, and a back that sags and bunches.  I had an idea for knitting the front in a way to incorporate bust darts for some serious shaping, but hadn’t quite figured out how to do that, so the easiest thing would be to start with the back.

My back, both in real life and for the back of the vest, is pretty straightforwards.

I knocked out a fast sketch of the shape and dimensions I wanted.  I swatched my yarn (Red Heart Super Saver in Blue Suede, and 5mm Addi circs) and once I had my gauge I plopped those numbers into Excel and did the maths to write up a pattern for the back.  I decided to work from the bottom up so I could have a ways to go before getting into any shaping – perfect for darkened theater knitting.

This, in case you’re wondering, is how much knitting one can get done during Avengers: Age of Ultron.  I knit the ribbing before leaving and all the rest during the movie.  By the time I got home I was only 10 rows short of my armhole decreases. And here’s the completed back.  Next up, the hard part – the front.