I’m so excited to give this pattern a try. I cranked like a mad woman before I had to get ready for work this morning so that I could work on finishing it during the day.

ILTY doesn’t have the right shade of orange, so I’m using BTV and adjusting the rows to be fewer than in the pattern in case it causes trouble. I may eliminate it all together or do the opposite and add more rows depending on how this one finishes up.

For this first one, I followed the child size instructions (90 rows) since my normal gauge for adults is about 94 rows (not 100) with any yarn other than Heartland. UPDATE: It’s 17 1/4” long, so child size for sure. According to my estimates, 94 rows will be 18”, so the right size for the average teen/woman.

I’ve woven in the ends of the colored yarn a little bit so it doesn’t show through the white, but I left the white as it should be fine behind the color.

9/26/24 Both ends are closed and I started joining the regular way (running stitch through 4 layers).

9/27/24 Join is done. I started the football stitching, but I may do the duplicate stitch for the long middle line like in this loom knit pattern: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/football-themed-...

10/1/24 I may make fingerless gloves to go with these, but I’m debating about having them brown like a football as in this project by ColoradoMom (also on Etsy as TalulaCrafts here): , or just sporty like Mary’s (Calumet Knits) in this pattern: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-riley-set-on...

10/17/24
I finally got the stitching done. Man, I was dragging my feet on that. I’m happy with it, although the duplicate stitch requires more practice to make it perfect.