A Royal Blue Knit That Worked

Years ago I knitted a Royal Blue cardigan for myself and it just went wrong somewhere.  It looked horrible on me but OK on my daughter so I gave it away.  This week I tried making another Royal Blue cardigan and it went wrong too.  However, this time I was determined not to let the cardigan end up badly.

I made a mistake following my own directions (forgot to read one paragraph about adding extra rows above the sleeve band because the garter-eyelet band was narrower than my usual 2" ribbing) and the sleeves ended up too short for the 3/4-length I wanted.  This made the whole sweater look square and clunky.  I stewed about it for a day or so, then cut the bands off the sleeves, added length by knitting another inch, then grafted the bands back on.  I crocheted a wide border onto the body of the cardigan and a narrower band onto the sleeves and neckline.  Then I tried it on and hooray, it looked fine.

This a a raglan cardigan with waist shaping at the sides.

Here's a closeup of the bottom edging.  I wasn't sure how crochet would look tacked onto the garter border, but it looks quite nice.

The sleeve crochet border is a band of picots from the wider edging pattern. In this photo you can plainly see where I added the length, but it isn't noticeable in real life.

I was wondering if I would have to fudge the spacing to make the border come out even in the center front, but it just worked out by itself.

Now I have a Royal Blue cardigan that I like and that fits correctly, and it should get lots of wear.