Christmas Knitting

Yep, still playing with colors on the picture to keep Mindy in the dark over what color her sweater is. This is the Lily Cardigan (there's a link a couple of posts back - I'm feeling lazy this morning). I'm working on the body of the sweater now and as the pattern is written, it decreases for waist shaping and then increases back out towards the bottom. As I've been knitting this, I totally get what someone commented on it the other day - basically that the Lily was like potato chips and you couldn't knit just one. I fully intend to knit one for myself but I've come up with several variations you could do, other than just changing yarns/fibers:

• Do a big button instead of the ties
• Add several buttons (3?) starting where the tie is in the picture and ending just below the bust line.
• Do the side decreases only to a point below the bust, then start increasing, making the cardi A lined with an Empire type shape.
• Eliminate the side shaping all together.
• Make the cardi longer - duster length might be cute, but I'd definitely add more increases over the hip area and probably the 3 button idea just to give it more support at the top.
• Do 3/4 length sleeves (I love 3/4 length sleeves - they don't get in the way of real life).

Seriously, I could just keep going. This is one of those basic patterns you can plug in your own changes to. You could even change the stitch pattern up some. I think you could knit 5 of these and no one would have to know they're all the same sweater pattern (OK, you could probably knit 50 of them and if you keep changing things up, it would still work).