Ribby Choices, er, Cardi

You are your choices. -Seneca

Let's talk more about my Ribby Cardi. As soon as I decided to cast on, I remembered why I hadn't already. There were choices to be made. Choices that had nothing to do with a gauge swatch (which I quickly determined would be useless in this situtation - gauge swatches lie). Choices that had to be made before I even began. Like what size to make. Finally, after many sweaters, I've learned what size I am relative to what I should knit. It takes a while. At least three or four sweaters, for me. But even now that I've finally figured it out, there are curveballs: Ribbing. Unstretched? Stretched? A little stretched. Yeah, good, but how much is a little? You see the problem, right?

I cast on for my "usual" size, knit four inches, and stretched and unstretched it (this can go on for hours), measuring measuring measuring. Still couldn't decide. I pulled out all of my cardigans, handknit and storebought, to measure them again. One was ribbed. It was 4 inches smaller around than all the non-ribbed cardigan. Then I held my four inches of knitting up to all the cardigans. Stretched. Unstretched. Hours.

Then I ripped and cast on for the smaller size - with 1 inch of negative ease unstretched. I know I'm the last person in the entire world to make this, so will those of you who have weigh in on this? Does that seem right to you? Seems right to me, but it's still awfully easy to rip at this point.