I am always knitting in a hurry lately. I have a week to make this for Fred’s first birthday. Started promisingly - I (quite) like the colour and the yarn - stitch relationship.

Two days in and I have obviously made an error - but I can’t tell where. Whatever I’ve done, it’s way too long. I have re read pattern 40 times, but still can’t see where I have slipped up. I think it’s my chart reading inability coming to the fore.

So frogging back to casting off for armholes, and going to rely on tape measure to decide where and how to finish the back. Trying not to mind about the hours of wasted knitting time (I would be half way up the front by now if I’d not made a mistake.) No idea how I’m going to adjust the front to match yet.

Jan 14th.
It’s all done, ready for Fred’s birthday today…but I think it’s going to still be a lot too long. Fred is tall, but not a beanstalk. However, if I’d followed the pattern, with just one diamond repeat on the front, it would have been far too short…

I had to fudge at the point the v-neck started, otherwise it wouldn’t have matched the back, grrr. Then the instructions for knitting the v-neck ribbing didn’t explain how to do a nice neat ‘v’ at the centre; when I got to this point I realised I’ve never knitted a v neck before, so I just followed the pattern and knitted round. Hmmm. I WILL learn to do this in the future.

What I should have done is (a) swatch, tsk tsk, think on, and (b) measured Fred, and (c) knitted the front first, then I could have matched the back to match, and (d) not been in such a rush…one day, one day…

PS, one year on, Fred is two and this fits perfectly!