Another Sweater

I just finished another sweater that I was making for my friend, Fatima.  She asked me a couple of weeks ago at church if I would make her one.  She was looking at the one I made for myself, and said that she thought it was so pretty.  She said she would love to have one.  I said I would make her one, but it wouldn't look like that one.  That was a really hard pattern and I didn't feel up to the challenge of making one like that right now.  Anyway, here is the one I did make for her.

This shows the v-neck in the front.  I think I made one button hole too many.  I'm also a little disappointed with the way it pulls up at the bottom of the band.  I think I must have bound off too tightly.  It is going to have to do.  I'm not taking it out.

From the back, you can see the horseshoe cable stitch and the regular cable stitch used in the pattern.

I met up with a little challenge with this sweater.  The pattern called for the shoulders to come down over the shoulder cap and join with the sleeve at the underarm level.  I made this sweater before for my friend, and I followed the pattern that way.  I wasn't crazy about how it looked, so I decided to put in the raglan sleeve instead.  That meant that I had to work the decreases into the cable pattern of the sweater.  I actually used the same pattern for the sweater that I did make for me to do the sleeves because it had raglan sleeves.  I just had to convert the stitch count to this sweater.  Anyway, I was really happy with the results.  Another thing that happened was what I call a "happy accident."  When I was picking up the stitches along the edge of the sweater to make the band on the front sections and the neck, I made a mistake.  The way I did it, there was a small hole where I picked up the stitch.  I thought that when I got finished, I would just sew the holes shut, but when I looked at the finished project, it looked like I had done it on purpose.  It looked natural, almost like a lace stitch.  I decided to leave it the way it is, and I think it improves the look of the sweater, overall.