Swine Flue and more of the Cardigan

I hav finished the back and one side.  I'll finish the other side tomorrow, and then start on the sleeves.  

I have found I do not like the chain 3 at the beginning of each row, so I have been doing the elongated double crochet - it's on a video that I posted awhile back.  You draw up the loop at the end of the row (rather than doing a chain one or a chain 3).  Then you wrap it around your hook by holding the top of the loop still with one finger....you go under the top of the first stitch in the row (the same one the loop came up through), yo, pull up a loop, and then complete it as you would any double crochet.  

You have to hold the top of the loop still with one finger while you do this.  I have found that if it comes lose, you can still do the dc easily as it falls around in place on it's own as long as you have completed one of the pull-throughs.  This leaves the side looking straight, and there is no gap between the chain 3 and the next stitch.  It really is just a dc. 

Heather's patterns call the first ch3 of each row just that.  She doesn't state that the ch3 is going to count as a dc, so at the end of each row she gives the count of the stitches and then says something along the lines of how many stitches plus one ch3.  I go through her instructions now and when it says 23 tr (treble in UK is the same as dc in USA) and 1 chain 3, and mark it out - changing it to 24 tr.  Makes more sense to me that way when I am counting.

I'm throwing in the photo below just for giggles!  Received it today from my SIL and just about fell off my chair laughing!  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!  If you want to 'steal' it, just click on it and when it pops up on a web page download it from there.

Have a good week!

Irrational Fear of Swine Flue