Why do restart, then? Through my experience with clothing I've realized that those pesky little problems that you notice at the beginning will stay with the garment no matter how much you try to ignore them, and for me, it comes down to ripping it apart before I do all the finishing work, or letting it sit in the closet for 2 years while I "forget" to wear it and then ripping it apart and reknitting.
To all of you knitters who are thinking about making this pattern, keep these things in mind:
1. Because of the thickness of the yarn, this is a chunky sweater and if it's not made correctly, will make you look chunky (like it does for me). In fair disclaimor, my yarn is a little thicker than what the pattern called for.
2. The back increase and decrease is really for the strong at heart because on me it looks hideous. The top part bunches unpleasantly, so I've ripped the body out and I will make the shaping on the sides. I will try to make it smaller - something like 3 decreases and 4 increases, to see if it looks better at the end.
3. For me, the yolk (or the top part of the sweater after you've joined body and sleeves) is too short. I've seen this on pictures of other knitters for this pattern. It seems that for size L, you should knit about 1-2 inches in stockinette before starting the owls and potentially with a small decrease before the purl first owl row. I'll give it a go and see how it comes out.
