To felt or not to felt

Cardigan in Progress

I am at a crossroads. I have never intentionally felted a self-knitted object before. OK I've never even accidentally done it, so I'm a bit wary. I just finished a top-down raglan cardigan with poofy half sleeves made of Noro Kureyon. I didn't follow a pattern apart from conforming to the basic one-piece top-down raglan approach. I spent about a month knitting the sweater, the last few days being intense knitting benders. It was heaven. So I got the buttons on this past weekend after washing and blocking, and when I tried it on the cardigan was a bit large. Like I'm about a size 10 and this sweater is a 12 or 14, which is to say it's roomy in the bust area.

Kureyon Kardigan

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Knitters are familiar with Kureyon and it's sometimes subdued, but usually not subtle, striping action. The colorway I bought featured deep red, dark brown, camel, purple, lavender, deep olive and tan. I'm not a striped sweater kind of girl, but I tell you I am in love. So to discover my circus sweater doesn't fit perfectly has me perplexed. I was pretty much resolved to selling the cardigan on Etsy when I went to bed last night. It's super cute, but it takes a special kind of person to appreciate its cuteness I think. Unavoidably I find myself wondering how I might "fix" it. I hate to disturb the seamlessness by cutting up the sides to remove a couple inches; too much brute force for my taste. So I've been mulling over the possibility of felting. Will I lose too much length? Will the fabric be too dense? Do I even want a felted jacket?

My next steps are to present this question to knitting forums I frequent and to knit up a swatch for test felting. And while I haven't got a sense of the community here at VOX yet, if you, dear reader, have any insight into my dilemma, by all means leave a comment. In the meantime, my cardigan continues to be a WIP.