Blogged here, along with a near disaster with a serger, lol!

November 15, 2015::

For the right front: Avoid having unsightly yarn carried where your button band will be by switching the side the yarn gets changed/carried: after your first 8 rows of MC, instead of starting the first stripe on the RS, cut the yarn, flip your work, take new yarn and start the stripe from the purl side (which will be the seam side). Make all your yarn changes on that side from now on. This does mean you will have to do your increases and decreases on the WS side to properly match the other front.

I sewed up the body with mattress stitch, the carried yarns don’t show on the side seams at all.

Button band: I ended up with 337 stitches after picking up as per the pattern (3 of 4 rows straight, 4 of 5 rows diagonal, 1 of every 1 bind-off stitch). Needed a number divisible by 4 + 2, so simply increased 1 st to 338 on the row after the pick-up (I put it before the shoulder seam).

I really don’t recommend putting a button hole across a K2 part of the rib, really unsightly. Figure it out so your buttonholes are always in the P2.

October 31, 2015::

NOTE: 2 balls of CC1 and 1 ball of CC2 is plenty for striping both the back and front for size 35.5”! I have 20g left of CC1, 34g of CC2 after the back.

I never carried CC2 up the sides. I carried CC1 up the armholes, and then started cutting all colors so that the armholes were clean for sewing.

October 22, 2015:

Loving my swatch colors, but struggling with gauge. US6 gives 21 sts and a great fabric. US5 gives 22 sts and the fabric feels tighter than I like. There’s no way I can reach 23, and even the ball band says 22 not 23. I guess I’m going to have to calculate! (I’m using the free pattern, not Custom Fit)

For 22 sts gauge I divided by 4 to figure out the sts per inch = 5.5/inch:

I picked a couple of sizes that were close to what I wanted and got the hip and waist st numbers from the pattern:

34” = hip (98) ; waist (88)
35.5” = hip (102) ; waist (92)

I divided the st counts by 5.5, then multiplied by 2:

34” = hip (98/5.5)*2 ; waist (88/5.5)*2 = hip (35.6”) waist (32”)
36” = hip (102/5.5)*2 ; waist (92/5.5)*2 = hip (37”) waist (33.5”)

My bust is 36” with a bra (my underarm shoulder measurement is 36” too), and my waist is 32”. For a fitted top, I would use the 34” measurements. But, I hate when cardigans pull at the buttons, so I’ll be choosing the 36” measurement for a looser fit. Amy recommends 2” positive ease, and I’m happy with 1”.

For those striping, in the swatch I held both stripe yarn colors up through the 8 rows of main color and I found the edge to be too bulky. It pulls the first column of stitches away from the edge and shows the other colors. This would be fine on a seam side, but on the button band side? I don’t think so. My advice would be to at least cut the inside color of each stripe section so that you only carry one color up the side.

October 15, 2015:

I never knit with black -- it’s hard to see what you’re doing and it’s hard to show off in photos ;), but how many times do I turn around and say I NEED A BLACK CARDIGAN. Ok, so this won’t be completely black, but it’s a start.

I’m not sure how this KAL works, is it just a pattern we all follow together? I’ll know soon, it starts in 4 days!