Pet Peeve Alert: Mismatched edgings

I just finished this adorable little baby shrug. I used the madelinetosh Tosh DK in the Baltic color. The yarn is so lovely to work with! I now understand the cult following it had. We do have a lot more Tosh on order, but it is about 4-6 weeks out, as they are waiting for fiber to arrive at their facility. So we are waiting patiently...

I used the Knitting Pure & Simple Pattern #288: Little Girl's Shrug. I love the Knitting Pure & Simple patterns, but have always been frustrated at how they recommend a garter ribbing on the button band, and then a ribbing on the neck, cuff and bottom edges. This drives me crazy!!! To make it even worse, in this pattern there is a great option for a lace edging on the bottom, which I decided to do. But then I'd have THREE different edgings: garter, rib and lace. No way! It wasn't going to fly for me.

I do understand why they do this. Because these sweaters are top down, they want you to work the garter edging on the button band AS you work down from the neck. You can't work a vertical rib as you work downward. So I'm thinking they are doing it to make it easier, so you don't have to go back and pick up stitches to work the button bands. BUT, you have to pick up stitches to work the neck edge, so you might as well pick up your button bands and work them so they match the neck edge. Right!?

In my sweater, I did the garter button bands and I did choose the lace edge for the bottom. When I worked my neck and cuff edges, I chose to use garter stitch to mirror the button band. In my opinion, it looks so much better this way.

Just know that you have the option of changing things on any pattern you follow. Just because it's written a certain way, doesn't mean you have to do it that way. It also doesn't always mean it's the BEST way.