If it's not a struggle...then you're not learning. so i guess i better be learning a lot on this one. took me 6 hours to make two sleeves yesterday. 6 hours!! i finally got a day off from the children...been almost a month. i took them to my mom's and she said....she was maybe getting a cold and did i want the kids exposed? maybe i shouldn't leave them. and i said....(and maybe i'm an evil mom...) but i said: hell no! a cold is nothing compared to the suffering these kids will go through if i don't get a break. is that bad? but i can't help it. i was burnt. so i left them there and spent the whole day working on....and getting worked by...this sweater. but it was the best day ever.

So...where did the trouble start? oh yeah....when i got this insane idea!! now now... ok...it started out fine. used a sweater who's shape i liked as a guide to make a pattern for the arm. i traced it out on some paper. luckily...my skeins were already the perfect length for a sleeve so i just laid the skein over the pattern. i put packing tape face up every few inches to hold the yarn in place while i sewed it together. one really good moment happened though, when i was about to cut the yarn at the bottom of the sleeve. originally i was going to cut the ends and they would form a simple edge which i would felt. but when i laid the skein down, the loops at the bottom formed such a beautiful tangled wave...i decided to keep them like that. it probably will be the best part of the sweater. plus it will tie in with the loopy neck better.

so i just sewed through the sleeve and left the bottom edge tangled. then the problems started. massive shrinkage!! by the time i had sewn and quilted the sleeve it was, like, 2/3rds smaller. so i had to add...practically strand by strand until i got it back up to the right size. this took and extra 4 hours and 3 bottles of beer. but finally i got both sleeves done. looking over all the pieces i also realized that the front and back have shrinkage and i'll need to do some patchwork with them as well. after that i'll piece it together and felt the seams. probably another full day of hard labor.


started out with a power lunch:



tracing the sleeve:







laying out the skein....the loops at the bottom were a sweet discovery!



the yarn layers were too thick, so i pulled some down from the main area. i can trim them so there are dangles around the wrist.






tacked together, now it needs to get quilted.



LOVE this edge! need to quilt it all up a bit tighter though.... but you get the picture.