Fern, almost finished

It's a good thing the upper part of a sweater front usually knits up quickly, because I've changed this one several times now.  I find the neckline to be one area of a garment design that benefits from trial and error, no matter how much I might try to plan it out ahead of time.

At first, I tried decreasing along the sides to add further shape to the bust area, but I didn't like the way that looked, so I tried again without the decreases--much better.  Then, it's always a little tricky to determine how much higher the neckline will be once the edge is finished.  I was planning to use a narrow applied I-cord edge, so I decided my first attempt was a little too revealing, and ripped back far enough to add a few rows.  In the picture, the edging has already been worked, but unfortunately I'm not done yet; the edging is rolling outward at the center front and back, and now I'm going to redo it, decreasing a few stitches in both areas, which will hopefully take care of the problem.

Here is a view of the side lace panel.  I'm also going to add the applied I-cord edging to the hem.  You can see from the neck edging that the I-cord has a softer look than the cord under the bust, not as crisply defined, but I think it looks good, and the method I used to create the cord under the bust would not have worked around the arms and neck, as it requires a level bound off edge.