18-05-2023

I’m managing to make work for myself but hoping for a nice finish by knitting the sleeves top down and in the round. This means picking up stitches and knitting into them, rather than sewing in the sleeves with a mattress seam.

In some ways I wonder if a bound off edge sewn in would reinforce the arm join? but I figure if it’s basically a continuous knit, and I’m kind to it, it should end up less lumpy.

29-05-2023

I’ve been wrangling sleeves.. and it’s looking good but also a bit tricky to get my head around.
Things work much nicer when you can pick up stitches from a running line, especially when the yarn is a dark colour. My eyes don’t like me!

I inverted the pattern so that the sleeves are known in the round from the shoulder down, hoping to avoid lots of mattress seams.

I pick up 11 at the top of the arm hole, and pick up 1 stitch each end until it’s 19 stitches.
Then pick up all the rest of the armhole stitches (which is a bit special if I have bound off the edge.. oops). (84 stitches)

Once knitting in the round,
I decrease by 2 stitches on the armpit side every 8 rows until row 40 (74 st)
Then by 2 every 5 rows until row 70 (62 st)
Then by 2 every 2 rows until row 90 (42 st)
Then knit in the round until it’s to length (about another 5 rows?)

Yarn chicken is a thing… wish me luck.