Evidence

I should say in defense of the ugligan that washing and blocking it has brought about change for the better, if only a little. The ugligan is no longer capital-letter-UGLY, rather, its ugliness is of the average sort. Here's evidence of ugliness, starting from least to most ugly.

The back is quite acceptable, if I may say so:

The side, too, is decent:

Partial front view elicits partial yuck response:

Full frontal. Well. Bless her heart!, they would say in the South, with hands covering their mouths, if they saw me like this:

That's Yuck meets Ugh, plus the urgent recommendation to start a diet.

I am hereby denouncing all items of upper body clothing that are held together or fastened at a single place that is right across or just above the chest, causing the rest of the garment to accentuate the unfortunate presence of a belly (itself the regrettable by-product of otherwise blissful consumption of ice-cream, soft cheese, breads and pasta, and, perhaps, alcohol) and, simultaneously, to cover the waist, which is, mind you, still there, and which has the important function of distracting from the hips. I shall furthermore stay away from shirts, blouses, cardigans, sweaters, etc., that end at the widest part of my body, i.e., the hips. Longer, yes. Shorter, perhaps. But right where this cardigan ends? No, ma'am.

If the cardigan had been longer, and if I had had enough yarn to make the button band seven centimeters wide, as called for by the pattern, instead of five centimeters, at which point I ran out of yarn, despite meeting yarn and gauge requirements, perhaps then I would have actually worn this thing. It was a lot of fun to knit. I feel I need to wear the cardigan in Berlin at least once when I go there in May because my mom gave me the yarn and pattern, but carrying a two-pound ugligan with me, when the luggage restriction is 25 pounds, just to show it to her...? I'll have to think about it. Photos may have to do. (She'd never wear it, otherwise I'd happily give the cardigan to her.)

One final remark: Even if this cardigan had been a perfect match for me, the yarn (tape/ribbon yarn, itself made of very fine strands and knit in a tube) would have driven me crazy eventually. Wearing it for as short a time as I did while taking photos, my hands, which admittedly are on the dry side, got caught six or seven times and I ended up with snags. Plenty of guys like this one:

Very annoying.

There. I shan't say another word about Ugligan. (I'll shed a tear in silence later. I really wanted this project to work out. *sigh*) (For more info: my Ravelry project page is here.)

PS: I like Yarnhog's idea of giving the cardigan to a skinny girl, since skinny girls get away with anything, but I doubt skinny girls, who can afford wearing fashionable skinny-girl things, would wear a purple cabled cardigan. I'll check. I'll ask my skinny, fashionable, 19-year-old students...

PPS: No ice-cream this weekend.

PPPS: Since I mentioned ice-cream, I must also mention that I'm back in the saddle, so to speak, riding the bike everywhere again, which makes me look less like the ice-cream pig that I am. Since it was cold and snowed a tiny bit yesterday morning, I had to wear a hat. Seeds is the first handknit hat that actually fits underneath a bicycle helmet. I was so thrilled I had the Hubs take a photo. You can see just a little bit of Seeds here (doesn't this also explains my choice of color?):