Mods:

1. Added bust darts for additional length (tried the cherry tomato heel short row method. Next time for bust darts I am going to do 3rd or 4th stitch rather than every other one.
2. Full length sleeves (because I like longer sleeves)
3. Fake seams both on the body and under the arms
4. Moved the lace pattern so that it stacks up against all the fake seams.
5. Size 0 needles for the seed stitch at the cuffs so they don’t flare
6. Size 4 needles for the body cuff bind off so that it’s stretchy enough.
7. Gauge was way off :) but that’s okay, had more than enough yarn (ended up using almost 7 skeins (35 grams of the 7th skein left over)
8. Decreased 4+ inches under the bust along the fake seam. Didn’t do any increases for the hips (because I don’t really have any.
9. 3.5 inches of seed stitch body cuff… This nearly killed me!
10. Didn’t do the YO increase did a standard increase cause I didn’t want holes :)

20120527 - Day 27

• took a couple of days off of working on this, but finally sat down to do the seed stitch :)
• Finished it off and all done!
• Blocking and new pictures to come!

20120522 - Day 22

• Ended up staying up late yesterday and weaving in all the ends, and frogging back the body hem back to the lace portion.
• Completed one more repeat of lace, and ready to start seed stitch.
• Trying to decide if I should use size 0 or size 1 needles for this so that it is a bit more sturdy and won’t flare like the original one did.

20120521 - Day 21

• finished sleeves and they are perfect :)
• body is a tad too short, and I don’t like how the seed stitch flares, so when I have a chance I’m going to rip back the seed stitch cuff, add one more repeat of lace (because it’s a tad short right now imo), and then redo the seed stitch with a tighter gauge.
• will weave in all the ends except the bottom one so that once it’s done it’s fully done.

20120520 - Day 20

• couple of days of no progress, but 3 rows from finished doing full length sleeves.
• love how the sleeves turned out.
• went down to a size 1 for the seed stitch on the cuffs, and I like how it looks, I think I might rip back the seed stitch on the cuff of the body and redo it with size 1 or even size 0 needles because it’s flaring right now.

20120517 - Day 17

• took a couple of days off of working on the sweater. :) I was hoping to have it done by the end of this week, but I’ll be lucky to get it done by the end of the weekend.
• 4 inches into the sleeves, doing both at the same time alternating between 2 balls for each (means I need to stop and untangle more often than I would like)
• Sleeves will be full length :) Trying to figure out the lace panel placements, I might go with a pyramid on the top of the sleeve, or maybe the pyramid along the under seam like I’ve done at the front and side seams… will make the decision when I get closer to that point in the sleeves.
• Also, not totally happy with the seed stitch hem, it is really loose imo, so I might frog that back and redo it with a smaller needle size… but I’ll hold off on that till after the sleeves are done and I try it on again.

20120514 - Day 14

• Finished the body of the cardi :)
• the hem won’t stay flat, I’m hoping wet blocking will make it lie flat.
• bust darts are a tad too low, but I’m sure that will sort it self out when I wet block the sweater
• Going to see if I can finish the sleeves with the remainder of the 4 half balls I have from the body, Each sleeve only has 60 odd grams of yarn allocated right now, but I do have 2 more skeins that are untouched to break into if I run out. But hopefully that will be enough.

20120513 - Day 13

• 1 row of lace left to do on the body then I can start the cuff.
• Kind of wish I had put one or two stitches between the lace pattern and the button band, but too late to fix it now, not frogging or tinkig back, it looks good, so going to stay with it.
• Decided to move the back lace bits to the side seams.
• I/m thinking i will need to break into that 7th ball to be able to do full sleeves :)

20120512 - Day 12

• 4 inches from the end of the body, I think I have about 8 rows left before I start the lace pattern, which should make things go faster :)
• Wonder if I can get it done by the 15th (I mean all of it including the sleeves) I may have to break into ball 7 of the yarn, I’m hoping I don’t need to break into ball 8 because ball 8 has some defects that I really don’t want to deal with at this time, but I also want full length sleeves. :) we will see.

20120510 - Day 10

• body not including collar is just over 14 inches long. I measured and I would like the length to be 22 inches at least, so I have 7 and a bit inches to go. By my math (10 rows to an inch roughly) I have 76 rows left to go. But only 40 rows to go before I get to the lace part.
• Decided I liked the look of the seams for the increases, so I’m doing a fake seam along the sides of the cardi and under the sleeves when I get to them.

20120509 - Day 9

• Added length in front (16 rows)
• 10+ more inches of the body to go, thinking I should knit about 6 or 7 inches and then start the lace pattern.
• going to copy the others in Madtosh may and do the pyramid lace instead of just 2 at the bottom, may also add some lace accents to the sleeves :)

20120508 - Day 8

• finished up to the armhole split last night :)
• this might get complicated, decided to keep the 2 half balls for the sleeves (so that I can alternate and hopefully get a nice overal even effect, and added 2 more balls to continue alternating for the body. So I will have 5 partial balls to juggle as I go along, but the body should go much faster than the increase section :) -More than slightly annoyed, I have one skein that when I opened it up, it has white splotches where the dye didn’t even touch the yarn :( and one skein that is a tad darker than the others. Ah well, the joys of handdyed yarns I suppose :)

20120506 - Day 6

• almost 3 inches to the armhole divide (total will be about 10 or so inches, perhaps 10.5, doing it more for the diameter of the arm sections to fit my arms :) )
• Love the fabric but knitting it this tight is a tad tough on the fingers. Also, I love the new hiyahiya sharps, but they are really sharp!
• Almost finished 1 ball of yarn, and part way through 2 more balls, so this time around 8 balls should be plenty!.
• as per my recalculations I should have about another 25 or so rows till the arm divide… so maybe 4 hours of knitting ahead of me? Perhaps I can get it done today.

20120503 - Day 3

• almost 4 inches into the increase section - much faster and more interesting than the seed stitch. Love how the fabric is turning out, especially since when I first started I wasn’t sure if I liked the yarn. It is turning out “shinier” and softer than I thought it would. Much nicer.
• Gauge seems to be about 7 st per inch, but I love the fabric.
• doing this with 3 balls of yarn, one started on each side and swapping every row - I refuse to do the newbie mistake that I did last year and have “large stripes”

20120502 - After day 1 of Madtosh May :)

• I have almost 2 inches of the collar completed.
• My guage is always tighter than most so I’ve cast on 120 stitches, and it’s working out to be about 19.5 inches long (6 st/inch)