how many times can angora be ripped?

apparently, at least twice, w/o any ill effects :) in my determination to knit a sweater that fits, i reached out to bloglandia and emailed some ladies that have successfully knitted the lara cardigan. size can be an issue, especially when you're knitting a debbie bliss pattern, as she does not provide schematics. but, someone in the know let me in on a little secret ... debbie bliss will be including schematics in her upcoming publications :) but, that wasn't really my problem.
my problem was more of a, "how do i want this to fit?" . it looks great hanging open, and just as nice pinned closed. of course, if it's pinned closed, then it does need to be bigger for the overlap. also, my size is on the small end of the medium ... so, i felt sort of stuck between sizes. i did opt. for the medium though. and, onward i knit! but then, my increases for the sleeve are every 7th row. i didn't want to be making increases on right and wrong sides, so i changed it to every 6th and 8th rows, alternating between the two ... averaging out to 7. all this makes me understand why there are scarf knitters in this world, and i'm not talking about scarfs from the _scarf style_ book, if you know what i mean.



so, with all of that said, i'm only about 2" away from casting on the extra stitches for the body. i imagine that's where the knitting can really slooooow down, as instead of knitting with only 68 sts, i'll be knitting an additional 114, for a whopping 182 %!@*?# stitches.