Good Night Cardi

I'm not going to lie, there was a period of time while making this cardi that I toyed with the idea of titling this posting "Buttery-Soft Piece of Crap" - because that is just that this cardi is - very soft, and therefore incredibly difficult to construct.
It's the first one I've made from a vintage patter I got on Etsy. So I went into it knowing that the end product was going to suck butt. So I decided to make it sleep wear. I needed a lil something when I get up at night to feed Mar May (seeing as how her daddy freezes me out with the AC). So the only person that has to like it is Mara - and like I said, its soft ;)
I started my venture in knits by looking up every tutorial about how to sew them and because this project was a "tester" anyways, I tried a tone of different stitches.
What I've found with sewing knits, especially soft jersey knits is:
1- you need a "walking foot" for your machine. I have no idea how you sew soft knits with out one.
this tutorial shows one.
2- the zigzag stitch that everyone tells you to use (as seen above on the shoulder seam) is not always the best. if youre going to use it in an area that needs to stretch, fine, but on this project it was unneeded and just made the fabric pucker on the other side.
3- Most tuts also said to move slowly - I found that my machine worked better when it went at a med-fast pace.
and 4- stay calm. you will have to take stuff out. cut stuff off (the original hem of my cardi was about 4inches longer to start) but dont get all pissy with your husband when every thing goes wrong ...like some people might have a tendency to.....
I tried hemming the whole thing (hence the cutting off and shortening...) but that was just not working. So I just trimmed the it.
And then it looked a bit plain, so i added these lil ...things... maybe they're bows, I kind of think they look like bats...

And I'll end it on that note.
N