Stick a fork in me because I'm done! (kinda)

Right. Apologies for the smeared mirror. But I'm done! Well, sorta. There are bits of strings all over the place, but I'll sew that up later on tonight while watching Prison Break. I have to tidy the strings and ends away.
Back of Loll. I'll retake pictures when the weather is brighter, but just thought that you'd appreciate a view of the back. The cardigan is a bit short, so I'll be wearing longer bottoms underneath the cardi. My style is much more casual than spit and polished, but some more length would have been good. Note the shaping at the waist. It's a nice touch that makes this pattern pop.
Finally, I've licked short row shaping. It was raining cats and dogs yesterday, and the internet was off, so I thought well it was better late than never. The blogs "Nona knits" and "purlwise" do have some good hints on how to do it, but I had to spell it out myself. I'll share my observations on short row shaping in a later post.
Close up of the curve of the neck. A slip stitch rib around the neck. Fab pattern!

The Nitty gritty.

I thought that you'd like a round up of this pattern. I consider myself an intermediate knitter: as in, I know how to follow a pattern, am not afraid to rip, change or make alterations to pattern when needed. I think my outlook is more advanced than my skills to be honest.

Needles: 5.5 mm needles . The pattern called for 5 mm needles, but due to the elasticity of the Rowan Calmer yarn (and my first time knitting with said yarn), I had to go up a size. The fronds at the end of the sleeves, back and sides call for 4mm needles. In retrospect, I should have also gone up a size (4.5mm).

Yarn: The pattern calls for 8 balls of yarn, but I actually used seven. I think it's because I went up a needle size, or something. I might use the other ball of yarn to make knitty's shedir. I need a cap.

Methodology: I did the sleeves first, both at the same time because the pattern for the sleeves had no shaping (and I was afraid of the pattern) and it was a nice way to 'work' into the architecture of the pattern. I'd advise you to do that if you ever start an unfamiliar pattern. Do the sleeves first. I then did the back , and you remember the dramas I had with that (two posts down), and the fronts for the last. Picking up the neck line and knitting it around was straight forward, so yay.

It's been so long since I've actually knit a garment, and have forgotten how long it takes to sew up. I also wanted my sleeves to be perfect re: the set in, so I ripped and reripped. The hubster actually gave me some good advice in terms of working from the top arc of the sleeve to the end of the armscye, so that if there is any bundling, it's all in the arm pit.

I did the smallest size for this cardigan because I have a 34" bust. The other size up was 38" and that had too much ease for me. The pattern seems to work on six stitches, and I didn't want to push my luck in adding an additional three stitches, but if I were to do it again, I might do so. I wish it had been 36" for the upsize, because of more room with tops underneath as well as installing a zipper. I'm not going to do that now, but I'm still thinking about it.

So, I'll tidy up Loll, wait for better weather to take some pictures.

:)