FO: Effervescence cardigan

This is the Effervescence cardigan, knitted with Araucania Ranco solid, a merino/nylon blend. I really like this yarn and I'm sad that it's been discontinued. I bought this pattern because I liked the front stitch design. The rest of it is a basic fitted cardigan, so I sized and shaped it to my liking. I made bracelet length sleeves and I think my shoulder section is a bit wider.

I converted this to knit as flat pieces, and I'm glad I did. The stitch pattern pulls in and narrows the gauge. After knitting about 3/4 of the first front piece, I discovered that it was just too narrow at the bust line. I re-knitted it about an inch wider. I normally like to knit the fronts of a cardigan wider than the back anyway, but this pattern needs even more extra width. If I had knitted in the round, I would have needed to re-do all or most of the cardigan in order to add in that extra width.

I knitted the front button bands using needles three sizes smaller in order to get a denser fabric. The gauge of the front button bands is 8 stitches/inch and the rest of the sweater is 6 stitches/inch. Here's my tip for the K1-P1 band: I knit the first and last stitches of the band as K2. That way, the edge knit stitches roll under a bit and you get a nice edge on the band.