Instant Gratification

I have been knitting with microscopicly thin sock yarn for so long, I have forgotten about the instant gratification found in chunky yarn. Just a few days ago, this was little skeins of yarn. Now look at it. Two mere sleeves away from a toddler sweater. And I was chiding myself for starting this a mere couple weeks before a 1st birthday party. Two days of knitting. 4 rows to the inch. Take that, knitting deadline!

And while I was digging around in the stash anyway, I also unearthed a sweater for myself. This one has been in progress for a couple years, I think. All it needs is sleeves, which I have started and ripped out several times. I loved the colors and texture in this yarn, so didn't want any kind of pattern to compete with it. So I just wanted a classic sweater, which I couldn't find. So with the hubris that only an advanced beginning knitter can understand, I took an existing sweater, put it on Lizzie (my dressmaker's dummie), and used it for a model, shaping as I went. All good, until I got to the sleeves, which giddy from my successes I decided to do top down, set-in sleeves, before I even knew how to do short-rows, mind you.

Well, the good news is that I THINK (famous last works) I have finally found the correct formula to pick up and decrease for fitted set-in sleeves. Now I just have to keep decreasing appropriately, and create the twin sleeve, which would require remembering what I did the first time. I am bound to get it right eventually, right?

Socks? Shawl? I don't know what you mean. I don't remember any socks.

Today it is all about the sleeves.