If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right

So I was getting to the waist in the body of my Owls sweater, but something just wasn't right. It was the short rows that raised the back. They poufed out, making it look like I was either a hunchback, or that I had vestigial wings I was trying to hide. I tried wet-blocking it (but is there dry-blocking I don't know about?) which seemed to make it flat, but a few hours after trying it on, it popped back out. So we went riiiiiiiip.

All the way back to the ribbing of the collar. I decided to try something different. Little clusters of short rows. I did two sets before I started the cables for the owls, and then another two sets afterwards. This is the result:

 So hopefully that's enough. I haven't been knitting much on this recently, since I've been working on Christmas knitting and it's been too hot to work on a sweater, but I still hope to get this done soon.