For my next "big" project, I hemmed and hawed a bit, even though I have a massive queue going in Ravelry, nothing really spoke to me.  I finally dug out some old magazines and this sweater in Rebecca 29 caught my eye. I had always wanted to make it but had forgotten about it:

The thing is, I do not want to make it so cropped!  What should I do?
The options are:

• Continue the 1x1 ribbing all the way down - oh my god, the thought of 1x1 ribbing from boob to hip makes me want to cry.  But I feel like I wouldn't have to worry about shaping as much because the ribbing would flow better with hip and waist curves?  Anyone know?
• Continue the cable pattern down to waist and do a 1x1 rib border - I envision this to be a bit fitted, so I'm worried that if I do cabling I'll have to mess about with shaping.  This may not be too bad because the join between the front and back is with some rib stitching and it may simply be a matter of increasing/decreasing these stitches.
• Something else - I don't know what other options there are. Stockinette, I think, would be all wrong.

I'm loving the yarn I'm using, RYC Cashsoft Aran.  Not too wooly, soft but not "floppy" if that makes sense.

That's a closeup for one of two sleeves I'm doing at the same time.  It's a nice pattern, easy to memorize... that is, it's easy after I figured out what the f&*# was going on!  I drove myself crazy for about a week with 4 false starts and after a zen moment in the car ride home, clarity hit me like Buddha in a UFC ring. 

It turns out that 1) I don't know how to read a friggin chart which is only exacerbated by 2) my inability to do math.  Knitting is a humbling experience.