My last chulo?

Well, maybe not, but I have to say I'm glad to have this one is finished. 

DS watched me knit a chulo for his cousin last Christmas from the book Andean Folk Knits: Great Designs from Peru, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador & Bolivia by Marcia Lewandowski.  I went straight by the pattern and finished the hat in two days.  Then DH insisted he needed a chulo, too.  DS watched that process patiently as well.  So what could I say when he asked for a chulo of his own?

We determined that just as his dad had wanted a change of pattern (Celtic knot from Alice Starmore's Charts for Colour Knitting a Designer's Source Book From the Personal Collection of Alice Starmore), DS also wanted something different.  We tried combinations of his initials and llamas and even made an attempt to reduce his cat, April, to a caricature -- apparently impossible to do with some cats!  Finally he settled on a modified dog chart taken from Lewandowski's book that reminded him of Holly-dog.  I wanted to use the  Cascade 220 yarn I had on hand so Holly-dog's biscuit color translated as yellow and DS wanted to deviate from his more usual red or blue color schemes with a khaki green.  For the accent color, I used the same light brown I'd used in the other two chulos. 

This one took more than two days.  More like two months, off-and-on.  Had to frog the charted design TWICE as I added an extra row of yellow one time and managed to insert a brown spot on a solid-colored dog another.  (That's what comes of me trying to knit and watch a movie.)   I also wish I'd paid more attention to the way I carried the yarn across the back of the dog's body because by making consistently even pick-ups I created lines I'd rather have avoided -- perhaps by using an alternating carry.

Also, truth be told, I was bored with the whole chulo.  Changing out the pattern helped but, except for those diagonally-knitted dishcloths, basic socks or what I call my Girl Scout houseshoes, I NEVER knit the same thing twice, much less three times.  What kept me going was an 11yo who showed so much pleasure at the idea of having a chulo of his own that I couldn't have quit if I'd needed to.  The night I finished it, DS wore it around all evening then stashed it away before bed so he could surprise his dad with it when he got home the next day.