I've come to the conclusion that the waffle stitch hates me. The yarn may like this stitch, but it's not reciprocated.
There I was, booking along on this vest, watching tv, happy as a clam. Until I looked down and saw this:
It's difficult to see the mistakes, but you'll notice the red arrows, I'm sure. Below red = good. Red and up = bad. Just look at all those purl stitches clustered together like a bunch of old biddies that shouldn't be clustering together. I don't know for the life of me what I'm doing differently than on the yellow side, but now I get to rip for the second time in a week and just about the same amount. Damn.I may go back to spinning more yarn instead knitting it.