WIP: Urban Aran Cardigan

I'm about 75% ready with my new cardigan in Alize Lanagold Classic - Urban Aran by Patons. Although the original pattern is for a women's sweater, it so much screams cardigan with its symmetrical design, that most of the implementations found on Ravelry are cardigans. And not surprisingly - quite a lot of them are men's cardigans after Jared Flood's popular interpretation. For me it was love from first sight - I saw sanfranfrenchie's cardigan, checked out the pattern, found that it was free and cast it on even before I had all the necessary yarn. I'm using the 300 g left from my husband's Burgundy cardigan, supplemented with another 200 g I ordered.

The feature I love most are the waist shaping cables, which make this design very flattering. Because the texture is basically rib with cables, I still haven't tried to block it, I'm a bit afraid not to stretch the rib too much and to spoil the negative ease I'm aiming at. However, the sleeves seem a bit narrow, so I might experiment with little steam blocking on them first.

I've already bought a matching zipper, but when I arranged the cardigan for this photo today I noticed that the metal ends of the zipper spoil the look of the cardigan, so I'll try to find another zipper with bigger teeth and plastic ends.

I think this photo is closest to the true color of the cardigan.

Autumn pictures from yesterday's hike on Vitosha near Bosnek.