Six months ago I finished knitting the Crowberry Cardigan (pattern design by Sarah Alderson). It was almost a win — but there were too many things wrong with it for it to be something I would actually wear.

I couldn’t stand the way the bottom half of the cardigan gaped open around my belly — who needs extra attention in that area? Here’s what I wrote in my Ravelry project notes at the time:

The gaping, rolled out edges on the bottom half is one hot mess. It draws attention to my stomach in a most ridiculous way.

Some notes to self:

1. stop kidding yourself that doing waist decreases on cardis is a good idea. Waist shaping only causes a fitted, open cardi to gape open around the middle. Not pretty.

2. always, always make the buttonholes smaller than you think you should. I’m considering a little post-knitting surgery to make the button holes smaller so they don’t gape as much.

Love those buttons, but they were a bit too heavy for this DK-weight sweater and the buttonhole gaping was ridiculous.

So this sweater sat in my drawer for 6 months causing me to feel irritated every time I opened that drawer and saw it, because I felt like it should have been a well-loved, well-worn garment.

But everything changed with a visit to the yarn shop! I dropped in to get an extra skein of yarn to finish another cardigan I’m working on, and I saw this amazing vibrant yellow Sadnes Garn Mini Alpakka yarn. I didn’t know what I would do with it yet, but I bought 3 skeins on a whim. I have been loving the grey-yellow colour scheme I’ve seen popping up everywhere lately, and I realized that this new yarn could save my Crowberry!

I got to work ripping out the applied i-cord edging all around the garment, and replaced it with wider seed-stitch button bands on the front that would help to close up that gaping.  A seed stitch border along the bottom and an applied i-cord edge at the neck, and voila! A cardigan I will definitely wear now.

Sure, the button band isn’t perfect (I have yet to knit a cardigan that I think has a good button band that doesn’t distort when it’s buttoned up), but this doesn’t bother me in the least. I’m just elated that I saved this sweater!

How about you? Do you have any stories of triumph over a previously-not-so-great garment? Do share!