Perhaps the group will end up doing a KAL on both. Personally, I am much more drawn to the Featherweight Cardigan! Vivian looks very cozy, but it is a hoodie, which to me, by definition falls in the category of informal clothes.
The whole hooded thing is a bit problematic for me, because
when I wear the hood, I feel a bit like I am posing as a teenager in the "hood", (bad pun, I know.) Besides, my husband makes Star Wars
jokes and starts speaking to me like I am the Emperor.
Not that it isn’t amusing to hear a Darth Vader imitation once in a while. But have you noticed that in both history and mythology, it's been men who have worn the hoods, not women? Knights templar, monks, bandits, what have you. To me, the hoodie is an eminently masculine look.
I'm not saying that women shouldn't wear them if they feel like it. I'm just not sure that when a woman covers up her hair and part of her face with the "masculine" covering of a hood that she looks particularly sexy. To me, it is more of a comfort thing, since hoodies are warm, as opposed to a flattering style. For me, hoodies are like sweat suits you wear to run out to the grocery store on errand day, or something practical to keep me warm when I take a midnight walk with my husband around the neighborhood. I’m not sure I would spend precious yarn money
and a month of my time on a project in that category. That leaves me with the more versatile option, the Featherweight Cardigan.
Granted, the Featherweight Cardigan is more-lightweight and informal looking that the Michelle Obama-style cardigan. The main issue I have with this pattern is the ribbed edging. So many finished versions of the Featherweight Cardigan that are posted on ravelry seem to sag. You can even see how the collar is starting to sag in the design photos! The collar is curling a bit already, as you can see on the right. Here is another example of the curling. And this is the design itself, where you assume they've done everything conceivable to make it look good!
draggled, wispy look around the collar, as if it isn’t quite finished
somehow. When that many projects have the same problem, you know
it is design, not user error. I am wondering if a double-placket of
ribbed edging would solve that problem. Maureen Mason-Jamieson
offered a class at Stitches West a few years ago on “Collar Obedience
Training” where she touched on the technique of the double cast on.
The idea is that when you are casting on your edging, you u se a piece
of contrasting-color waste yarn to mark your cast on stitches. Then you
go into the back of the cast on stitches, using the waste yarn as a
marker, and cast on again. You create a second layer of edging behind
the first, and then use the triple bind-off technique to fuse the two
edges together.
My first attempt on this, on a
collar, looked terrible. It was difficult to hold the two collar edges completely
straight and flush with each other when I was doing the triple-bind off so
that the edging effect was straight. However, if I could master this technique, and apply it to a ribbed edging, I will post photos here, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Sorry, no photos yet.
My other concern with the cardigan
is the closure issue. Do you notice how the model is using her hands to
hold it closed so that it looks good for the photo? Big red flag there! If you look on Ravelry, again, you see a lot of examples where the
cardigan just hangs limply in an odd-way, because there’s no closure,
and the fabric is too delicate and thin to hold its own shape. This is a bigger
concern for me than the collar. I could close the cardigan with one button/pin at
the top, as some people have, but then it creates a pear-shaped look, which will
only emphasize the width of my hips by falling open there and creating a
widening effect. Not quite sure of how to solve that problem. We’ll see what
happens in the final vote tally!