Mods: Fitted sleeves, side seam increases for hips, seed stitch details, grosgrain ribbon collar.

Gauge of 21 sts per 10 cm. Used size C under the DK weight and cast on 64 sts using size 7 needles.

Ultimately I knit this until the arm hole height was 8 inches from the cast on. I did knit this WAY too big the first time and had to rip back. One of those phases where you just keep knitting and then look down like, “Oh! Wait! I should probably take a look at what I’m doing!” and knit and extra 2 inches past what I needed!).

I did add some side seam increases to compensate for the larger size of my bum. After the waist, I knit about 3 inches and then would increase a stitch on each side seam every 4th row for a total of 6 increases on each side. I find this fits infinitely better around my hips than my first Mama Vertebrae and will continue to add this modification in my third installment.

I knit the sleeves in the round, so I used a needle size 8 to keep the tension looking consistent. I need to remember that no additional stitches are needed under the arms, these sleeves are very baggy already and I like my sleeves a little more fitted. I knit until there were 67 sts for each of the arms but they were still very baggy. I decreased 4 sts right away under the arm and then decreased a stitch every other row until the cuff.

I knit this as a 3/4 length sleeve as I usually push my cardigans to that length anyway. To keep my seed stitch from being too floppy on the edge, I did the seed stitch in a needle sizes that was 2 sizes smaller than what I knit the sleeves in. After 2 rows I switched to a US 5 needle and after 2 rows of that I switched to a US 4 needle until I was happy with the 14 rows and bound off.

The collar I knit in a US 6 but could have easily done a US 5 or maybe even a US 4. The seed stitch was a little floppy so after blocking, I sewed in some grosgrain ribbon.

I couldn’t find a cool ribbon in a 1.5 inch ribbon, but I did find some cool Harry Potter ribbon on Etsy from Happiness by the Yard. After shocking my boring grey 1.5 inch ribbon and the Harry Potter ribbon in hot water to preshrink it, I pinned and sewed the HP ribbon to the grey with my sewing machine. Then I pinned my ribbon to my washed and blocked cardigan and hand stitched it to the collar all the way around.

It stands up just a little but I like the effect. It keeps the seed stitch from being floppy and saggy and it is like a nice suprise to have the Harry Potter ribbon on the inside. It’s literally an inside joke.