Wallaby Hurray!

Before we talk about how Wonderful the Wallaby is, I want to tell you how wonderful the Long Island Power Authority is. The other day, we had a downed line. I don't know what kinda line, it seems that there are eight million lines now. There's power, phone, fiberoptic cable, Cablevision tv lines...whatever. So, it was in the street and we didn't want anyone to get hurt. They sent a truck right out and fixed it up for us. See what a good job they did?

Ahem...

So, anyway, I haven't really been working on the Jaywalkers, they're up to the heel flap, pictures soon. I did pick up my Wallaby. Now, I am making the LARGE size and my gauge is right on. It's not at all "ROOMY" as they indicate in the pattern. My husband can take a medium shirt although lately I've been buying large because..well, his chest has dropped a little...tee hee! But he is not what I would call LARGE by any stretch of the imagination. Here's what it looked like last night...

And here's this morning's work added to it. He's saying "HURRAY, YOU PICKED ME UP AGAIN AND NOW ALL I NEED IS A HOOD!!"

I think that I am going to go with the stockinette stitch hood for this but I'll ask hubby what he wants. I need to do two more rows of ribbing and then the increases for the hood. It's really a nice pattern, albeit small. I may make one for myself but I may make the extra large or go up a needle size, we'll see. So far, I changed two things on the pattern. One, the length. I don't think the sweater was long enough and his backside would be cold so I made it more hip length than waist length. I also made the sleeves a little longer, I made them to fit him. The shoulders are snug. This fits but not as I had wanted it to. I had one small problem so far with this pattern. The decreases in the yoke didn't work out evenly. You see, you place a marker at right side of sleeve, left side of sleeve each side. Then, you decrease two stitches at each marker every other row. Well, the number of stitches left on what was the sleeve goes down to two and the decreases didn't come out evenly so I wound up with two extra stitches after I did all the repeats called for. I fudged the pattern and it's mathematically correct and works but I shouldn't have had to do that. I didn't do the math but I don't see a place where I missed a decrease. I am 90% sure that I did it right. It doesn't matter, I made it work. The Yarn Harlot herself says that it's ok to do what works, right?

As for the pattern, sometimes it's chatty and I don't need that. It was fun to knit and I like the fact that there is very, very little finishing. You don't wind up with a sweater in pieces for eight or ten years until you feel like sewing it together one day. The drawback is that you may run out of yarn in a place where it is hard to sew in the ends without it showing. I did a good job, I must say...! You can also try it on as you go but who's going to rip out 800 rows of 268 sts, unless, of course, someone takes a scissor to it and cuts a hole half way down........

Stay tuned for the finished product as well as some Jaywalker pictures. Going to start a pink Cottonease Wallaby next...I think. Tomorrow, more beach, methinks!