janestarz | Fitting the Harvest Cardigan, part II

This is turning into a regular documentary, answering such basic questions as "do dye baths really matter?" and "What if the standard sizes don't fit my body type?".
I'm continuing on the Harvest Cardigan with new elan. It seems my Muse is done with socks, socks suck and especially patterns that only have one size and are too large and silly. (Simple stockinette stitch, so far, seems okay for socks. But the pair of Karl's socks I'm knitting for Eisirt have fallen from grace.)

Last we spoke of the Harvest Cardigan, I was ready to frog and knit some increases to accommodate my big hips and butt. I have since that post cleaned my mirror so at least the selfies are not so disgraceful any more and you can see what I'm doing.

As a reminder, this is where I was, and I'll post the new picture of how far I frogged back right next to it for comparison!

I frogged back to the part right between the second and third buttonhole, a rather indeterminate point that might be a little bit above my natural waist (the part where you place your hands if you want to do an aerobics side-ways stretch in style). It's just a bit above my navel.
It may not seem like I frogged back a lot, but I hoped I could get away with it. This cardigan is not yet blocked to it's proper gauge and as you might recall I need 1½ stitch more to the 10 cm to meet that gauge.

A note on gauge: Gauge (pronounced 'gay-tsch') determines how many stitches per 10 cm, so if they say a size L is 110 centimeters, you need to meet gauge to get that 110 cm. If you need less or more stitches per 10 cm, your gauge is off. But the pattern will tell you to cast on a certain number of stitches. If you knit exactly those stitches but you need more stitches per 10 cm, your cardigan will end up being too small. You can fix this by switching needles. Sometimes a different type of needle (metal vs. wood can make quite a difference!) will fix your gauge, sometimes you need another needle size.
I do not quite meet gauge: I have 19,5 stitches per 10 cm, where I needed to get 18 stitches per 10 cm. Since I need more stitches to get 10 centimeters, my cardigan is slightly smaller than it should be, but the difference is so minor I can fix it by blocking. The wool will keep its shape -- and I've already heard from Moonwise this wool fluffs up quite a bit by blocking, helping my gauge.
Gauge goes two ways: stitches (width) and rows (height). I match the row gauge perfectly.

The past few days I've been very enthusiastic about this project again -- how not, with my muse's sense of tragedy and the weather being absolutely wonderful and me sitting around the house having nothing better to do! I've knitted and knitted, and I'm 28 rows on, seven repeats of the prescribed increase pattern. I also connected a bit of extra cable, so I could fit it even better without being worried my stitches would fly off the needles.
And this is where I stand today:

It's down to just below the small of my back, reaching the top of my buttocks. I do think it fits much better now, even if the bottom still curls up because of the stockinette stitch. Considering there are still 10 centimeters of garter stitch to follow, I'm wondering if I should start on those now, or do one final four-row repeat to be safe.

And you can also quite clearly see in the picture why dye baths are important. In real life, the difference is not so pronounced, and 90% of people wouldn't even see it. (I do, and I chose to ignore it. It's that bad.)

Onwards! I can nearly smell the end!
I mean: just ten centimeters of boring garter stitch to the hem and then there's two whole long sleeves to do, but the end! It is nigh!