I’ve wanted to knit this for years now and have only now worked up the courage! I am taking notes from dullegriet, knitrawr, LCBraun, and feelingsheepish.

7/11 - It is done!

I had originally picked up more stitches than I needed to along the back so that the back became really wide and floppy. To remedy this, after I was done with everything, I picked up some stitches along where my lower spine naturally bends and created something like the band behind trench coats to help cinch it some. This worked wonderfully and the body now feels fitted. I must thank knitrawr for her extremely helpful notes and photos. The sleeves are very fitted to help relieve some of the bulkiness of the yarn weight. There are two buttons along the collar purely for decoration. Like knitrawr, I used snaps (8 of them) along the button band. This yarn has wonderful stitch definition, however, in retrospect, I would have opted for a yarn that knits up to a slightly more drapey fabric. Oh well, I can’t complain too much, acrylic/20% wool is easy to care for. My husband shot these photos of me while I modeled the cardigan during San Jose Japantown’s Obon festival. People looked at me like I was loony for being the only person to wear a big sweater in 85 degree temperature!

6/25 - onto the sleeves. I have restarted the sleeves about three times now, each time trying to make them more fitted. I think I am finally happy with them to continue.

6/12 - got distracted by video games (Portal and Red Dead Redemption) so I kept putting this off. I finished the torso and am now on the sleeves. I realized I needed more height around the collar, so I did one more cable yoke using 9’s; now there are three tiers of horseshoe cables. For the sleeves. I am getting a smaller seed stitch gauge while knitting in the round, so I went up to 10.5’s. Wonder if I’ll be able to finish this and get a chance to wear it before it reaches blazing summer temperatures.

5/1 - finished the yoke and am now chugging along on the body. This has been pretty fun to knit so far! At first I thought the short rows would be confusing, but knitrawr’s notes have been so informative. I am inserting short rows at the under arms on either side every 4 rows because there is a dip along the center back and to make up for differences in cable and seed stitch row gauges.

4/18 - am knitting the yoke with two horseshoe cable repeats. I cast on 30 sts (2 purl sts, 12 sts for first horseshoe, 2 purl sts, 12 sts for second horseshoe, and 2 purl sts). It’s about 6 inches in width. Following LCBraun’s advice, I’m inserting short rows between the cables and at the outside edge. I found she explained it best like this (but she did 3 cable repeats instead of 2):

I did a pattern of knit one row across three cables and purl back, knit the 2nd row across 2 tiers of the cables and purl back, and then across just one tier of cabling, then purl back. The next row started that pattern again.