I finished this sweater in January, but after blocking it ended up being significantly bigger than I would have liked. The sizing problem was a combination of my gauge being off and the cables blocking out a bit wider in the back. I wore this for a couple of months trying to convince myself that the sizing was fine, but I just started hating it more and more. The biggest problem was that it was too big in the shoulders, so it looked sloppy and made the sleeves hang down too low. It also had about 4” of positive ease around the hips, which didn’t look or feel good.

So I’ve ripped the sweater apart, and I’m going to reknit the whole thing. I’ve swatched again with a smaller needle than I used originally. I like the fabric I’m getting and I think it will be less likely to stretch out of shape while blocking.

I’m following the 42” size for the shoulders and making the sleeves according to the 46” size. But for the body of the sweater, I’m coming up with my own numbers to better fit my measurements. In the past, I’ve done shaping at the sides and vertical shaping in the body of the sweater. This time around, I’m going to try eliminating the side shaping altogether and only doing shaping in the body of the sweater.

For the zipper, I mostly followed the tutorial at The Purl Bee, except that I pinned both sides of the zipper at the same time and used a running stitch instead of a back stitch for sewing the zipper in.