The part of the old sweater which has aged the least gracefully is the cast-ons. This is, I will freely admit, because they weren't done well to begin with. The wonderful book "Principles of Knitting" by June Hemmons Hyatt (pleasepleaseplease re-publish it soon!) makes the point that cuffs get the roughest treatment and therefore need the strongest edges. Mine had no such thing. I wasn't clear on how to keep the start and finish of cast-ons permanent. Now, I tie knots. Sacrilege, I know. But the un-ravelling from the bottom up of my beloved sweater taught me to be ruthlessly definite about the limits of the cast-on.
Also, I used to cast-on much more tightly than I do now. I have learned (thx JHH) many different kinds of cast-ons and occasions on which one might use one or another. I don't need to rely on my old system of long-tail cast-on followed by vigourous yanking until there was some resemblance between the circumference of the sweater and the circumference of the cast-on. I am sure that technique contributed to the short-lived edges of my old sweater.
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