Who you're gonna call? Stashbuststers!

Remember the yarn I was bitching about? It's the brown sheep cotton fleece in 'raging purple'. It's more blue in the screen than it is in real life. If it were actually like that in RL, I'd have been pleasantly surprised. It's more of a lavendar in reality than a periwinkle as it is in the photo. The other yarn is an eggplant colour, and this is the purple that I truly love. Not many yarn companies seem to be able to do that deep, light absorbing purple though, pity.
The last time we left our erstwhile heroine, she was all a twitter over the Phildar patterns and wondering what to knit next. Well, things have happened since then. I've sent off the french pattern to be translated (and hope to get it in the next two weeks), and I'm going away for a short holiday and might pick up some yarn. So, erm, as a result of this, I have to stashbust. I do like the blue sky alpaca yarn's cropped cardigan, but I cannot justify buying another pattern right now, so I'm trying to do a copy. A bootleg, so to speak. *cough*
I've never attempted a topdown raglan before. I guess it's because my circular needles (before I got the knitpicks options) were rubbish: very stiff plastic cords, rough surfaces... yeah, Pony circulars are the rubbish. I'm actually using Bergere de France Magic yarn which is 50% yarn and acrylic. The yarn is a lovely colour, like an egg plant, but it's very splitty and you cannot knit by touch alone. The yarn is heavier than aran weight (takes a 5.5mm needle), but I'm using a 5mm needle because I want this cardigan to have a bit of structure.

From what I've seen of this cardi, it seems to be a top down raglan - with no button holes, so I'm going to imitate. The neck and sides seem to be ribbed, and the sleeves are in stocking stitch for the first three inches, then ribbed to the end. The bottom eight inches seem to be in 1x1 ribbing as well.

If I find that I need closures, I'll get a toggle or some hooks.

Due to this being one piece, it's going to be back and forth in stocking stitch for a while to come. That's okay though, after the madness that was Loll, this suits me down to the ground. Also, I want to know what it feels like to knit seamlessly. Will I abandon piece knitting for knitting in the round?

I'll try and detail as much of this process as I can before I go away. I don't think I'll be carrying my knitting with me, because the Med is blistering this time of year.

Update: I'm not really comfortable with the kb&f increases, it looks a bit messy because I don't know what I'm doing. If it looks really bad, I'll rip back, and do an M1 increase. If it's good enough for Elizabeth Zimmerman, right?