I had some highly appropriate comments

from readers on the Aran Pants post (though no one mentioned the potential itch factor or the "too warm to wear anywhere but the North Pole" factor). It did occur to me that these issues, along with those of felting and wear on the rear end, could be mitigated by knitting with Red Heart. This would, however, have the potential for exacerbating the waffle skin issue, and would probably be the only thing that could make this more of a bad idea than it already is. All in all, it's probably best to slowly back away from the pants.

I suspect the publisher was simply looking for a new and different design, one that no one had ever done before (and as far as I can tell, has never done since). I do give credit to the designer for working it all out. It can't have been easy figuring the pattern placement and shaping and grading for sizes.

********************
Here's another scary pattern from the same book.



(It's scarier if you click to make it big)

Although, maybe the little girl's version would be cute. And what if you ditched all of the embroidery on Mom's execpt the panels next to the cardigan opening? Nah, might work for someone, but it's definitely not me.