Finished the first stash item of 2012

First stash item 2012 - the camera doesn't show the true 'redness' of this

I've long wanted to knit this aran waistcoat from the Third Sublime Aran book.  I have some very precious yarn in mind for it, but just wanted to check it out in something a bit less precious, so used a bright red, not wonderful acrylic that I had 'in the heap.'

Glad I did this and didn't go into my precious yarn straight away.  The things  I learned from this are :

1).   If you are doing a knit 3 purl 2 rib, it will always be twelve rows later when you find the place where you knitted when you should have purled.
2).  I can recover the above situation by laddering back to the error, correcting the stitch with a crochet hook and then using the crochet hook to complete all the stitches above.  It works fine as long as you don't twist any of the stitches.
3).  There is no armhole band.  The knitting just stops.  That's fine if your knitting stitches look neat at the ends of rows.  Not all mine do and so I'm going to have to experiment with my first and last row stitches to get a neat edge.  There is no advice on this in the pattern and this is one of the things I had my doubts about when I started, which is why I used cheap yarn first.  I edged the armholes with a little blanket stitch to tidy up.
4).  Rib stretches out when you cast off and so the seam at the top of the arm sticks out a bit.  I need to find a way to counteract that. 
5).  Although I have used a rather cheap, not great quailty yarn I have achieved a wearable, durable, knit that I'm rather pleased with.
6).  I can wear it with the shawl pin placed there for a whole day without stabbing myself in the stomach.