Old made New Bernat Klein/The Roberta Vest

Late last summer/early fall, a friend, Roberta, brought me a sack with lovely vintage sixties/seventies wool/silk fingering blend start of a sweater her mother was making, long before she passed on. This yarn, Bernat Klein is named after Bernat Klein, woollen and synthetic textile manufacturer of Galashiels, Scotland. Wow, I read this is the guy that came out with these funky wool/mohair spaced dyed woven into tweedy plaids! I used to make matching a-skirts and vests with wool like this in the sixties! I bet he was alot of Kaffe Fasset and Brandon Mabley's influences/inspirations. Hmmm, Bernat Klein really needs a comeback! So now I am trying to find out if Barry and Myrna Klein of Trendsetter Yarns are related to Bernat? There is a Begonia named after him! I am naming this newly designed vest, The Roberta Vest.

Well, the story on the sweater goes: The sweater was being made by/for the mother, who was a size three. Roberta is a bit larger than I so I put on my largest, baggiest shirt to model the remake.

I had to rip out the top and side seams of a sleeveless boatneck. There were five extra skeins that I am sure were for sleeves. Their were only seven repeats of the pattern to the top, so I added an extra one on the front and shaped a u-neck for a vest. I finished the back by having ten repeats of the leaf pattern to the top and shaped a neck. I added two side gussets of five lines of the leaf and four of the stockinette lines having to remake because I forgot to add an extra stitch at each end for seaming. I used the same finish on the neck and armholes used on Nora Gaughan's Knitting Nature U-Neck Turbulance Sweater. I loved and coveted this piece of work and so desired to keep it.

This is a cool, classic look and I am thinking about making a pattern to sell? Would you be interested in it? Please let me know!