Sleeves=Conquered

The sleeves are finished... except for the finishing of course. They match, much to my delight. I finally convinced myself to knit the last 32 rows.  The strip of cables next to the sleeves is the under-bust.  38" of cabling.  8" down. hoo-buddy.

Aren't those lovely

Now, you may be wondering about that.  I told you I was adding about 2" to the bust of this thing, which has a max measurement of 34". Well, in the original pattern, you knit 36" of cables.  Part of this is because the edge tucks up in a delightful fashion but most of those two extra inches are consumed by the depth.  That is to say, the length you knit will be the outside circumference, but because of that 1cm depth (give or take), over the course of those 36"/38" you lose almost 2" on the inside.  Like a long skinny doughnut...  made of yarn. Because the pick up is on the edge, with the outside rolling down, your picking up over the smaller measurement.  Nifty, right?  There are a lot of clever things about this pattern.

There are also a lot of abominable things.  I cannot overstate this.  I know Vogue Knitting is mildly notorious (can you be mildly notorious? I don't know) for printing patterns rife with errors and this is no exception.  The only difference is, and you'll love this, there isn't an errata.  There are a few author's notes on Ravelry, but other than that, you're on your own.  The reason I already know that the errors are coming (and they're mostly in the decreases) is because I have been rewriting the pattern systematically in my notebook so that the alterations are already finished by the time I get to the desired section.

Five pages so far...

 There are knits on the (ws) in the middle of a field of stockinette.  There are decreases that don't add up.  And to make matters worse, there are no stitch counts. Everything is by the marker, which is fine, but it would be nice to have a count at some point.  (this after I said I don't care about stitch counts, too.  Murphy's out to get me, I swear.)

I've made it to the hood in my re-writing, but I may need to go back through and tack on a few decreases across the chest (or rather above it). As for the hood, I'm referencing a pattern I've made before--the wintersweet scarf--for decreases and increases.  The scarf uses short rows to fill out the mid section and cinches up tightly at the base of the neck.  I think it's exactly what I'm looking for.  (A note on the scarf.  It's a really interesting pattern, and when it's finished, it looks very much like a head covering.  For all you ladies out there who cover your head for modesty's sake, this one might be worth looking into as part of your winter-wear)

So, back to grinding out cables. I may take a break from the sweater to experiment with a concept floating around in my brain... It could be amazing...