Rendiconto della Cosa Finita!  (Yes, that's FO Report in Italian!)

FO Report: Aran Weight Lace Cropped Cardigan
Designers:  Ann Cannon-Brown and Michelle Ciccariello
Pattern Source: Free pattern from Elann.com
Yarn: Lamb's Pride Worsted in Silver Sliver
Needle Size:  8, 9, 10
Gauge: varied
Date Completed: Feb 2006

Here it is!  The finishing was luckily extremely minimal ... which means it won't languish in my knitting basket for months.  This was my Knitting Olympics project, even though I didn't really sign up with the Yarn Harlot, and the inspiration from fellow Team Members helped me to get to the cast off during closing ceremonies last night!  (Okay, I'm lying ... I actually cast off during Season 4 of the Gilmore Girls, but it did occur concurrently ... does that count?)

Besides the fact that I really like the fit here, I highly recommend doing this pattern as it was the most interesting sweater to knit.  I've knit bottom-up sweaters before ... I've knit top-down raglans before ... but never a top-down lacey raglan cardigan.  It was really interesting to see how the sweater was put together.  The lace patterns were both fairly easy, and now that I've made this sweater I'm seeing the Horseshoe lace pattern crop up everywhere.

I had a minor issue with the pattern, however ... the pattern itself is rather loosey-goosey and is written for you to decide just what you'd like to fit.  As such, it's a little difficult to decide just what exactly to do when -- and because the lace stretches out considerably when block -- it was difficult to measure as I went, and there was a lot of guesswork involved for me.  The authors didn't even say exactly how many repeats they worked before the next step -- which left me guessing and trying to count the number of repeats based on the dark photos.

As such, here are my specific notes on the pattern:

1. I worked the pattern from size 8 to size 10 needles -- I'm not sure why I never switched to size 10.5, but I think it had something to do with those needles being occupied on another project.  I was a little overconfident when I made this decision, and then I started worrying that the project wouldn't block out well -- but it all turned out okay in the end.  You, however, should probably go with the 10.5's ... it can't hurt.

2.  The yarn I used worked fairly well -- I guessed at when I was halfway through one skein (half of 190 yds is 90 yds, very close to the original), and then I switched needles.  This is actually my first sweater done in Lamb's Pride -- and man, did this shed!! It was a little difficult to knit, because I was turning the whole sweater around with every sleeve round, and the shedding started to really itch my throat.  In the end, I hope that the yarn wears well for me.

3.  As for the repeats ... I ended up doing 11 total body Horseshoe pattern repeats plus the bind-off pattern, and 7.5 total sleeve Milanese lace repeats.  I had a total of 14 Horseshoe repeats in the width of the sweater -- see #4 below for an explanation.  If I were to do it again, I'd consider doing the sleeves in all-Milanese, rather than switching from Horseshoe to Milanese at the top of the shoulder. 

4.  As for the separation of body and sleeves ... the instructions were very unclear about how to do this, and I just sort of proceeded as it made sense to me.  As it was, I separated the sleeves at the end of a Horseshoe lace pattern (I need closure in my life at times), with several st st stitches outside of the lace pattern.  I ended up with 2 sts on either side of the raglan marker ... so, when I joined the body again, I had 2 sts on either side of the body and I cast on an additional 4 sts to create one more complete 8-st repeat.  Because of this, I had a whole additional repeat of Horseshoe that ran directly under my sleeve.

5.  When I joined the sleeve, I had the same number of extra st st stitches -- 2 on each side (4 sts), and I cast on another 4 sts for 8 sts total between the beg of the round and the end of the round.  I left these sts in st st, and I decreased 2 every 5 rnds (not every 4 rnds -- every 5 just made more sense in the pattern, at the middle and end of the repeat).  So, I only decreased 8 sts total in the sleeve, and all at the top.  This left a very bell-sleeve, which I'm fine with, but you could always decrease more. 

6.  Also, I modified the picot BO on the sleeve ... instead of casting on two stitches, and binding off 4, I cast on one stitch and bound off 3 to make the picot edges a little smaller.  Knowing that I live in my sweaters, I needed the sleeves to be somewhat workable for everyday life.

Visit another helpful post by Step Into My Thimble for more information on how she finished her sweater, as well! 

More photos, just for fun:

Since we moved my stereo cabinet, I no longer have a good place to set the camera on auto for self-portraits of FO's ... that's good, because it means no more goofy poses in front of my closet-door-cum-wreath ... but it also means I'm trying out different corners of my house to see if they'll be a good replacement.  Welcome to the corner of my dining room here!

And welcome to the ugly unnatural-lighting-bathroom shot!  I like the back of this sweater so much, it's worth showing the pose here.

Time will tell if these silver beads were a good choice or not.  Here's my modified picot edge on the sleeve, too.

And here's the button! 

And as for that whole UFOlympics thing ... I didn't quite reach the goal of 16 UFO's turned FO's, but I at least finished 8 ... which makes me feel better, even if I didn't medal in that event.  One UFO every two days is a pretty good average ... if only I could keep those statistics up in the off-season.