Sweaters for my men

I've finished the body of the Hringur sweater for my husband. I still have the sleeves and yoke to knit so I'd say that project is about 30% completed. I haven't started working on the sleeves yet because, frankly, I'm bored with it.

So instead I've been working on my November Stashbusters project: the Argyle Cardigan from Debbie Bliss' Special Knits. The argyle pattern is supposed to be knit using the intarsia method for the colour blocks while stranding the main colour. It looked really crappy (on both sides) so I ripped it out and will embroider it on using duplicate stitch when I'm done. I've never done that either but it sounds easier and neater.

So far, I've completed the body and one sleeve. One more sleeve to go on this one and then I'll try to figure out the neck band which, according to the pattern, is knit separately from the button-hole and button bands. This doesn't make sense to me. Why not knit the ribbing all the way around from the left front, around the neckline and down the right front?

Maybe I'll be bold and try to knit it all at once unless I can figure out why they are knitted separately. The big obstacle at this point is that there are four live stitches on either side of the neckline to be picked up when knitting it so I'm assuming that the button-hole and button bands are picked up along the edge of the neckline as well. Unfortunately I can't tell from looking at the picture in the book since it is full of artsy shots that don't show detail very well.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

Cheers!