Thank you for the thoughtful comments on the last post. It’s really interesting to read other people’s perspectives on comments, commenting and motivation for blogging. It’s given me a lot to think about.

Changing the subject completely, I’m always interested to see how finished projects fare down the track. Often a project’s blogging life ends soon after the project is finished, which means you don’t know whether the item got much use and what improvements would be made if it was made again. A recent epiphany about a finished project has provided the motivation to start a periodic ‘where are they now?’ series.

My Tyrolean Cardigan was finished about a year ago, but it’s only been worn a handful of times. I decided that the button band was the reason I wasn’t wearing it very often – I wore it to work recently and found I fiddled with it a lot.

before:

The button band was originally worked as in the pattern – seven buttons, with two spaced close together at the top and bottom. In this configuration, the front gaped a little, even though there was enough fabric to cover me. The buttons at the top and bottom were also largely redundant because I wore the cardigan with only the middle buttons done up, to help it nip in at the waist more.

A few potential solutions came to mind, but I ultimately decided to pull out the button band and start again. This time, I added an extra buttonhole and spaced them out more evenly. This required a bit more surgery than anticipated, as the neckband needed to be reknit as well.

I’m pleased to say it’s a lot more wearable now. It was taken for a test drive yesterday and I didn’t fiddle with it at all! Adding the extra buttonhole made all the difference, which is unsurprising given that the body was knit a bit longer than specified in the pattern.

after: – ravelryed here

As for the rest of the garment, I still really like the bobbles, the colour and the button choice. Being a very warm cardigan, it’s coming into its own now we’re on the Winter side of Autumn. Probably most importantly though, the fabric is holding up ok. There’s a bit of pilling under the arms, but as the rest of the cardigan is remaining pretty much pill-free, I’m reasonably satisfied with how it’s wearing.

The ‘where are they now?’ series is unlikely to feature all of my past knits, as not much interesting stuff can be said about a garter stitch scarf. However, I may be able to slip in a few pre-pransellknit knits that might be a bit more interesting…