Thursday, January 8, 2009

Sweet Sleeve Success

I knit a sweater once every 5 years. It's not the knitting that takes 5 years. It's making myself continue once I hit a snag. 4 months knitting, 1 year in the closet, repeat until the sweater finally gets done.

Right now, I'm working on a sweater for Jim. Perhaps he should henceforth be known as "He With Long Arms".

When I did the multi-colored K2P2 ribbing on the cuff of the sleeve, it came out too wide and baggy. Until this fall, that would have meant the sweater would be relegated to UFO-land (the land of UnFinished Objects) because of this dilemma.


I'm trying to be better about finishing projects and not letting problems become insurmountable stumbling blocks.

I researched online, and in the Ravelry forums found conversations about Fair Isle cuffs and loose cuffs.

Combining strategies from those posts, I measured a favorite sweater to know what size I needed to make, figured out how many stitches to decrease to get that dimension, did the decrease and knit the cuffs on needles two sizes smaller than the current needles.


Jim tried the sweater on tonight. Miracle of miracles the sleeve length is great. The cuff is the perfect size.

Gotta love it when that happens!

2 comments:

Lynnette said...

I'm with you there, seems that I'm a good knitter that just can't make things that fit anyone! I'd never thought to search Ravelry - great tip.

Leigh said...

It sounds as though you knit just like me. :) Your cuff looks great! Like you, I did the K2P2, but now I'm thinking to just frog it and do cuffs and bands in a solid color. Not because I'm discouraged with the process, but because I think it would look better. The corrugated rib works really well with Jim's sweater though.