14 October ‘09 - Gosh I absolutely loved this pattern. Here’s the few mod’s I made:

• Knitted the 34-inch size, but to a tighter gauge and then blocked to fit (result - close-fitting cardigan rather than a baggy one).
• Entirely changed the hood construction to make it bigger, longer, and more rounded (link goes to instructions for 34-inch size, but could give inspiration for other sizes -- note that this is a totally different approach to the one I’ve listed below, and one I much prefer).
• Cut the sleeves! Eek! Realised they were ridiculously long and cut off the equivalent to one pattern repeat, then bound off the ends. Followed endsandpicks instructions.

In short, visit here: https://felinityknits.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/vivian-my-...

11 October ‘09 - Finished finished finished! Hood grafted, ribbon sewed onto zip, sleeves (whisper it) cut to exactly the right length. I am so happy with this project. Photos next weekend if I can.

9 October ‘09 - OK! The hood shaping has worked. I need to pluck up the courage to graft the edges together, rather than 3-needle-binding-off, but otherwise good.

And then: I might (shh) cut the sleeves. I know. But they’re sooo long, they almost come to my fingertips, and endsandpicks and snugger have encouraged me that cutting at an appropriate point and then binding off is actually a viable option.

And there’s the ribbon backing to do. And I might change the zip… Basically this thing is never going to reach 100%. But I’m making progress!

7 October ‘09 - RIGHT. After a month off while I sulked, I’ve now ripped the hood back to about row 27, and have worked out an entirely different approach to it. I’m now about 16 rows away from finishing it for the third and, I sincerely hope, last time. Watch this space -- if it works, I’ll share what I’ve done, and if it doesn’t I’ll throw it out the window! I’m hopeful though -- the new approach puts all the decreases in the seed stitch panel and also incorporates a better way (I hope!) of shaping at the crown. I’ll know in a day or two… can’t wait for this to be finished, I do still love it so despite everything.

30 August ‘09 - Gahhh, this bloody hood! Adding so much length didn’t work at all -- it hangs too long with a scoop at the bottom and looks all wrong. Back to the drawing board!

23 August ‘09 - Decided that I still wasn’t happy with the hood -- it was bigger than the pattern but actually still quite small. So have ripped it out as far as the decreases and will knit again -- this time I’ll add 36 rows to the pattern version (instead of the 18 I added last time). Zip’s in though (apart from the ribbon backing -- haven’t found the right stuff yet).

19 July ‘09 - It’s GORGEOUS! Arms a little long but everything else perfect. Just the zip to go -- am practising doing the zip on my Ribby Cardi first to make sure I get it right.

I’m so thrilled with it. Yay!

16 July ‘09 - It’s blocking! Will it be too tight? Are the sleeves far too long? Will the forearms cut off my circulation? Wool takes forever to dry so I’ll have to wait and see! (for that last point -- I am blocking the forearms to a bit bigger than the schematic, around big roman candles, which hopefully will do the trick) I’m quite optimistic but you never know with these things. Then there’s still the zip to sew in. Good times.

12 July ‘09 - I put this to one side for a month or so, but have come back to it now and finished the hood. It’s a little fiddly aligning the hood rows with the pattern rows (mainly because RS rows are now odd rather than even numbers) but I’ve overcome this by obsessively marking down each row I knit, and numbering them both by pattern number row as well as hood number row.

I agree with all the comments that the hood as written would be too stumpy (this is the only bit of the pattern where I’ve deviated from the instructions -- the rest I have I followed to the letter!). These are my instructions for lengthening the hood by 18 rows (I’m knitting the 34-inch size -- I’ve italicised the two points in the details where a number of stitches would change depending on which size you’re knitting, if you were to follow these instructions). This still doesn’t make a big hood, but it’s at least big enough to fit over my head now! You could easily do another 12 rows before starting the decreasing which would give it a bit more of a push (but still not be huge).

• Work as written for hood until row 26.
• Do extra seed stitch panel increases on rows 27 (46 of pattern), 45 (64 of pattern), and 51 (70 of pattern) -- 6 extra stitches increased.
• Rows 52-62 (71-81 of pattern), work straight in pattern as set
• Row 63 (82 in pattern), work to seed st panel, p2tog, work to 2 sts from end of seed st panel, p2tog, work in pattern to end
• Rows 64-68 (83-87 in pattern), work in pattern
• Row 69 (88 in pattern), work in pattern to 1 st before seed st panel, p2tog, work to 1 st from end of seed st panel, p2tog, work in pattern to end
• Row 70 (89 in pattern), work in pattern
• Rows 71-80, repeat last 2 rows 5 more times.
• Row 81 (100 in pattern), sl 3, work 30 sts in pattern, p2tog 10 times, work in pattern to end

I kitchenered the i-cord stitches together, then did a three-needle bind-off for the rest.

1 June ‘09 - Have reached the hood. Am a bit scared that my plan of knitting tightly and blocking to fit might have made it all too small! But I am keeping faith with my original swatch. Also, the hood’s the first time I’m deviating from the (amazing) pattern, and I feel a bit guilty!

27 April ‘09 - 98 rows into the body. What a brilliant pattern!

5 April ‘09 - Yarn a very generous (and unlabelled) gift from glitzfrau. Seems to be a bit between aran and bulky, when washed. I have LOADS -- winding one skein took a few hours and I had to divide it into two balls, each nearly the size of my head! If the washed swatch is anything to go by, this is going to be a super-warm jumper. It’s been a very long time since I last knitted with pure wool -- it’s a little scratchy (though softens a lot with washing), but also nice and ‘grabby’ which is handy for cabling without a cable needle (which, in this pattern, is a bit of a must).

Pattern is only four rows old, for me, but fun so far!