There are several disadvantages to knitting with black yarn. It's hard to read your work, even under good light and with bright contrasting needles. It picks up every bit of lint in a four-mile radius. And it photographs for shit.

This is the back of the Wall Street vest which is intended for my father. He's a big, burly guy and the vest is sized accordingly. 52" chest. DK weight wool. Approximately nineteen thousand four hundred seventy-two cable crossings, not that anyone resembling me counted them as she was knitting cable after cable after cable. 234 stitches across for front and back each. So 468 stitches around per row. Depending on how much yarn is consumed by neck and armhole banding, I figure this vest will take between 1900 and 1950 total yards of Filatura di Crosa 501. There are entire sweaters, wearable by normal sized adult humans, that take less yardage than that.

Okay, I may have exaggerated the number of cable crossings ever so slightly for dramatic purposes. But those other numbers are verifiably accurate. But do you want to hear the funniest number of all? I honestly thought I would have this thing knit and finished in four weeks. It ran to about double that, not including the repeat sentences to knitting jail, which lasted almost as long as the actual knitting time.

But it'll be worth it if it makes my dad happy. He's worth every last stitch.