This pattern is kind of farmer-ish and appropriate for a boy with both Yorkshire and Ireland in his roots…hence Eee Aye Eee Aye…

The yarn is beautiful. It has little flecks of orange, blue, brown and black against a warm background and looks a lot like the colour of dry stone walls further north. It is a bit on the itchy scratchy side, even after a wash (which softens it up lots) but I hope a teeshirt underneath will help fix the itch factor.

Then again, Gene is increasingly narrow in his choice of clothes he likes to wear. And waistcoats don’t appear on his current list of approved items. (Though it’s also true to say that he doesn’t actually own a waistcoat…yet.)

I swatched. My gauge is way, way off. Maybe this is partly due to the difference between aran and worsted? I don’t want to go down a needle size as the fabric is already fairly dense.

Cast on 96stitches for a finished chest size of 22 inches. This means following the 3-6 month size for stitch numbers, and then 4yr old size for length measurements. Some brain ache here. I used garter stitch for edges rather than seed stitch.

I like the shoulder shaping and the hint for knitting up the pocket edges together with the front of the waistcoat. (It’s useful to leave long tails when you cast on for pocket linings, by the way, to use when attaching these.) Not sure about the width to length ratio. I like the way this looks as the designer intentioned - close fitting and fairly short, like a waistcoat should be. But Gene isn’t here to try this on, so I have no idea if this is how it will look.

Hmmm…just how annoying is it to sew in the very last end only to realise one front is longer than the other? Very.

Finished. Mussel shell buttons. Pockets deep enough for a chocolate penny or two. Come on now Gene, what’s not to love?