Tested this cardigan for Jennifer. The design is gorgeous and this was super fun to knit. Instructions are very clear and easy to follow.

My gauge was spot on, but the cardi did grow a bit when I blocked it (which surprised me, since my swatch didn’t grow when blocked. Must be all the extra weight of the full cardi!).

If I knit this again, I would take out a few rows from the back neck. I have very narrow shoulders, and it gapes a bit there and also comes up a little higher than I would like. This may mostly be because of growing when blocking, as I didn’t notice anything amiss here before I blocked and steeked it. I would also work the sleeves one size larger, as they are a bit tight on my upper arm. This isn’t a problem at all if I wear just a tank top underneath, but I can’t really wear anything heavier than that. That said, the cardigan is very dense and warm from the stranding, so I probably don’t need to wear anything other than a tank underneath anyway!

Worn with 2 inches of positive ease at bust and waist and 1 inch of positive ease at hips.

More/better photos to come when the weather is better (and my new yellow skirt arrives!).

Mods (designer approved; please note mods were made to draft pattern and pattern released may differ):

• added length to sleeves and body (one extra pattern repeat on body, two extra on arm)
• extra waist decreases (can’t find my notes for what I did here)
• extra hip increases--increased every 5 rows 9 times, for a total of 230 sts, or approx. 41”
• lined the button band on both sides with some ribbon. Adds stability and helps prevent gapes. Bonus on the button side is I could hide the steek under the ribbon instead of whip-stitching it down like I had to do on the buttonhole side
• bigger buttons, so had to modify the button band a bit. I knit one extra row on both sides. On the buttonhole side, when I got to row 4, I worked 5 sts, (BO 3, worked 7 sts) repeat part in parentheses until end. Then the next row, I CO 3 sts each time I came to the BO sts.
• Had a minor fiasco with the buttons. Was totally stupid and didn’t plan for one on the neckband before creating the button band, so that one is not as evenly spaced as the others. Also, I only had 12 buttons (vintage), so that one is different! I may redo the neckband at some point so that button is better spaced. I also had to knit one less row than I wanted on the neckband, because I totally ran out of MC. I even had to unravel my swatch to use the yarn from that!