Ljod is done!

I finished Ljod (see post of May 19th for more details) and am very happy with it! It in fact fits me better than it does Jezebel, my vintage wicker display mannequin; she's got a real forties-era shape that is much tinier than I am. But the sweater has a very feminine hour-glass shape that makes me look like I still have a waistline, and is a good length with a nice flare at the hem.

I did shorten everything, as I am only 5'2" tall and I suspect the pattern was drafted for a classic Nordic Goddess physique. The yarn also relaxed in water and everything grew in the blocking, so the sleeves that I planned for 3/4 length are much closer to my wrist-bone than I planned (but that's one reason I chose 3/4 length; to allow for yarn growth). For anyone using this Silky Wool yarn, with it's high silk content, I would definitely suggest erring on the side of less than more, and anticipate everything growing in blocking by a bit.

I made a number of small tweaks to the pattern, aside from length, that are more to fit my personal preferences than because of problems with the pattern. All of the tweaks were done with short rows. I added curved upper back shaping to accommodate my big shoulder blades, and also knitted in bust darts. The front bands are knitted along with the fronts,which I don't like as the bands end up stretching more than the body, and the front gets too long in the center where the bands are. To eliminate this problem I worked short rows across the fronts, stopping at the band stitches when wrapping/turning. I did this short row about every 10 rows (I base a lot of my invented shaping on the "every 10 stitches, rows, etc" principle; this gives me a 10% adjustment which I can mentally figure out without doing a lot of math.). The bands looked a little tight while I was knitting but relaxed perfectly in the blocking. I used small square vintage mother of pearl buttons for the closure. And it's done!