Jaeger Tilly and Hungary

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Here's my progress on the Jaeger pullover (Tilly) that I'm doing in Little Lehigh cotton. I made a gauge swatch that matched the stated gauge, using needles 2 sizes smaller than recommended. I then began the back. Somehow the actual sweater knitting was much different than the swatch, and after a couple inches progress, it was obvious that it was much bigger than I wanted. I ended up going down another 2 needle sizes before I got the correct gauge. Instead of Size 7 & 8 needles, I'm using Size 3 & 4 needles. I continue to wonder how anyone could get the stated gauge with the recommended needles, notwithstanding that I'm using a different yarn than specified. I still don't see how you could do it. Quite a lot of unnecessary messing around in my view anyway. But it's going well now, and I like the texture and feel of it. It's not going to be a particularly fast project since it's about 19 rows to the inch. Oh well, I'm not in any hurry. I'm doing the back in a smaller size than the front, as I often do for sweaters.

You're probably wondering about the mention of Hungary. I was looking through some stats on who reads this blog (I love seeing where people are from!) and even though it's not particularly detailed, and many visitors show no information, I can sometimes tell what country and/or city they're from. Suddenly a couple days ago, I noticed that there were about 30 readers from Hungary! I wondered what brought that about, and found a Forum called Nok Lapja Cafe that linked to this site along with several other sewing blogs I'm familiar with, including Debbie Cook's. I have to assume it's a sewing blog, but you can imagine how disappointed I was when I found that Google Translate doesn't do Hungarian yet! Sigh. I did see a mention of SWAP there, though, so I thought that was quite interesting. Even though I'm not SWAPping this year, I am fully behind the concept, and try to apply it within my wardrobe. I wonder if Julie at Timmel Fabrics has heard from anyone in Hungary?

Before Christmas I walked into a waiting room with my knitting bag, and saw another woman sitting by herself knitting away, so I sat beside her and we had quite a nice talk. She was making a scarf and I was working on the last sleeve of Zachary's Drops Pullover. She kindly offered to give me a pretty dishcloth pattern. I was very pleased to find the next time I went to that office that they had it for me in my file! I decided to make it up quickly, and here it is. It was fast and fun! Pretty wild colors, no?