I can't stop!

I guess I'm addicted to embellished cardigans.  Maybe I need professional help, but I'm having too much fun.  This time I did two, but they look strikingly similar, like they could be one in the same in a certain light.  But I swear they are actually two different cardigans in two different colors.  One is for my sister, because her birthday is on Saturday.  The other is for me, because I wanted one.

This one is my sister's.  The cardigan is black, and the lace applique is gray.  Oddly, I found two very different shirts from the thrift store that both had essentially the same lace pattern cut out in the back.  It was sort of a v-shaped cut out detail just below the neckline.  One was in gray and the other in ivory.  So I bought them both, cut out the cool lace design part and tossed the rest of the shirt.  They were ugly anyway.  

As a birthday spoiler, I let my sister pick which one she wanted (she picked gray) and the color cardigan she wanted (she picked black).  Then, as in before I laid out the pieces and sewed them on.  This was a little tougher than the last ones I did, simply because the symmetry was so much more pronounced on the appliques.  If it was messed up at all, it would be easier to tell at a glance, and then (I assume) that would be all anyone would see every time the sweater is worn.  ...At least, the OCD people, myself included.

So that's my sister's birthday present above.  Pretty standard, black cardigan with a nice little gray embellishment.  Happy frickin' birthday, sister!  (I also made her some jitterbug perfume, shhh...future post, maybe)

That left the ivory lace for me.  And I had the darndest time deciding which cardigan to use.  I tried a beige, which did have a decent contrast but the cowl neckline was a challenge:

I tried an ivory cardigan, which I was expecting to look much better than this but you can hardly even see it:

I tried a nice soft blue, which also looked pretty good but also had the cowl thing going on:

And finally I tried a charcoal gray, which I decided I liked the best:

And here it is all finished.  I brought the design up a little more toward the shoulders on this one.  Again with the symmetry issues, but any inconsistencies are actually due to irregularities in the lace itself (it's not my fault, I tried you guys!!).  They don't really bother me too much, and it looks really nice on.