Oblique

I'm sad to say that this sweater was four years in the making. Well, to be honest it was knit in a month then sat in my closet for four years waiting to be sewn together. Finally, I pulled it out and took it to Beth at Black Purl and had her sew it together for me while I worked on Pole and when she returned it I picked up and knit the button bands and collar in a day or two and Voila! Done! It really wasn't that hard. I'm so annoyed at myself for waiting that long when this is clearly what will be a "go to" cardigan. It's big and comfy and great with a pair of jeans.

After being shoved in a bag in the closet it's looking a little crumpled so I think I'm going to steam it a little, but I'm a bit hesitant because of the very long sleeves. I'll have to be careful to not let them grow. It was a common problem I noted on Ravelry (after I knitted it) that the sleeves were coming out two inches too long. Now, I like long sleeves, but I'm pretty sure that these could grow too much which is why I'm going to be very careful in steaming it.

I'd also recommend making the buttonholes bigger as they came out rather small and proportionally it seems a little off with such small buttons on such a big sweater, but I can live with it because half the time I won't have it buttoned up anyway.

The other problem I had with the pattern was with the collar band. Veronik tells you to pick up 4 out of 5 stitches up the neckline to get 56 stitches. I ended up picking 2 out of 3 (which looked good) and still got 62 stitches, which was the XL size so I went by that stitch count. I still ended up having to calculate myself the initial row with short rows as the totals in the pattern were completely off causing the pattern to be written incorrectly for that size.

Also, the yardage is so far off base, I used at least one and a half times what the pattern called for, which was also the common theme on Ravelry. I was frustrated to see that even though this pattern is five years old that there has been no errata published anywhere for the pattern. So knitters are still struggling through these same issues if they haven't read through other knitters posts. Now, I'm a big fan of Veronik Avery but even though Knitty doesn't pay very well, you would think that the designer would take some pride in her design and update some errata at least with yardage.

That's just my little rant.

Bottom line though is that it's a lovely pattern, lovely sweater and we're going to live a long and happy life together.