C'est Comme Ci, Comme Ca: Bergere de France

The unfortunate and rather disappointing Bergere de France - Take II:

Specs:

Pattern: Bergere de France - Take II
Yarn: almost precisely six skeins of Knit Picks Elegance in Ash
Things I'd change:
This pattern was modded from the get-go. The original pattern is much baggier, and knit with a worsted weight. On the KAL on craftster, someone suggested just going down a yarn weight or two, which is what I did. The part I'd alter is the number of rows in the yoke (about an inch or so more would be useful) and go up a needle size. Above is the post-blocking outcome, and below you see the pre:

Aside from the bottom which is unfortunately curling up (yet another thing I'd change: the ribbing to a 1x1 instead of the rib called for in the pattern), I think I prefer the pre-blocking stage to the post. It's not as stretched and diaphanous.
The cables turned out nicely, and the yarn is lovely to work with.
A big boo-boo I committed was with the set-up for the yoke on the front of the sweater. I left several of the edge stitches too loose, and so when the time came for finishing, I thought I could just tighten them up and all would be right. Oh no, not so, as you can see rather shamefully here:

My sadness continues as I see there are no decent photos of this here unfortunate knit to show.

Mods:

I knit the body in the round til an inch or two before the instructions changed for each. This helped maintain my sanity, because I truly do not like at all or in any way having to CO for the front and then CO for the back, knitting the very same way for inches and inches.

And I leave you with a cable close-up: