The Chronicles of the Bulky Cabled Cardigan

When we last left off, I was begging all of you for advice, but really I was tricking you into making a decision for me. My plan worked and many of you offered up your advice, thanks! The majority voted for longer ribbing, some warned not to add ribbing to the body without thinking of the sleeves, someone said that I needed to add length to the body, someone mentioned cropped cardigans being in style and some people told me I already knew what I wanted to do. I agree with all the above, well except for that already knowing what I want part but I won't digress into semantics.

I deliberated and finally forced myself to make a decision. I thought of ripping back to the body, but when looking at the yarn again I doubted it could handle it. I haven't even worn this sweater, let alone finished it, and it's already pilling. I love the yarn (hpy bulky merino), but I doubt I will use it again for a sweater since it felts when I look at it funny. Basically all my beautiful knitting and cables, the cables!, look out of focus. Great. Want proof?

This basically decided it for me, but I really did think about adding the length to the body. I wasn't sure if the proportions were right for longer ribbing, but if you look at the top picture you'll see I found a similar sweater with the ribbing you all love. Ok so it works, it helps that this sweater doesn't have any waist shaping to worry about and that it's knit from the top so I can do this sort of thing. I guess I could have left the length alone, but I kept hearing 'fat man in a little coat' in my head. Just because it's short it doesn't mean it's right, it needs to hit at the right spot.

So why am I going on about this? I guess to say that I do think a lot about this stuff, maybe too much, and that I'm very particular about what I like and don't like hence the indecision. The three inches of ribbing was quick enough to add, so I went ahead and knit the button bands. Hell, some could say I'm done, but of course I'm not. I still need to decide what to do with the sleeves; to aggressively block or knit some length into them (and how)? Then we get to do some serious blocking, some possible shaving (target here I come), and then pick some buttons.

We are almost there my friends, almost there.