This cardigan has been ghosting around my mind and sketchbook for quite some time, and after playing through some other ideas for the yarn, I arrived at this: super-tailored, lacy without being overly so (and using one of my favorite lace patterns to boot!), with clear lines, half-sleeves, folded-over hems, and a couple of whimsical details like a turquoise stripe on the inside of the bottom hem and the vintage mother-of-pearl buttons.

All in all, this went surprisingly fast, especially considering the total knitting time on it amounts to less than two months -- I didn’t take it with me when I wasn’t home for most of March, and I had a couple of instances where it just sort of hung around my knitting basket, especially when I tried to decide on the best shoulder solution. The entire section from the sleeve-join upwards was knit in two days, in which I put in an amount of time best measured in a season of ‘Rome’, a season of ‘Doctor Who’, and about 80% of ‘The Fifth Element’.

This was featured on the lovely Knitted Bliss blog’s Modification Monday, how cool is that!
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lace chart from Cookie A.’s pattern Kai-Mei; provisional CO in the middle so the pattern is mirrored.

PU bottom first, side incs moved back 2 rep.

folded-over hem 20 rows, no picots (k 1 ws row), essentially 3-ndl-BO w/ sts picked up off the backside
button band garter st (see Tempest)
4 small buttons at lace band, 1 YO buttonhole, corresponding decs spaced and paired

sleeves: CO 96, k 12 rnds, p1 rnd, k 100 rnds (underarm 23)

shoulders: EZ’s saddle shoulder sweater modified to form a seamless set-in sleeve (shoulder width 70 sts; basically just a reversal of the instructions, with short rows, starting at right front, decrease the shoulder caps away, then add a total of 6 triangular short rows over the last 15/10/5 sts); 3-ndl-BO