Greetings from Sleeve Island, where I’m still hanging out with Donner. I’ve been knitting and knitting and knitting I finally find myself here:

About thirty rounds until I’m finished the second sleeve. I can’t believe how long they took – I don’t have very long arms and they’re just 3/4 length sleeve so I feel like they should have whizzed by me so fast they made a breeze but nope. The same dumb slog that sleeves always are. Worse – right before the sleeves I had what felt like a wave of brilliance, and turned out (as usual) to be kinda dumb. I was knitting along on the body and wondering how long I should make it, and wondering how much yarn I would have left after the sleeves and the neckband, and I was properly tired of the sweater and eyeing up the next project and I thought about putting it down, and then it occurred to me that I could just put down the body and move onto the sleeves and it would be so totally great. It would be like a new project, and the sleeves would get done and then I’d know exactly how much yarn I had left for the body and after the sleeves were done I could try it on, and decide how much longer to make the thing. It felt like a genius idea, so I pushed the stitches back on the needle, stuck the ball of yarn on there, and then put on a stopper. (I love this clamp kind called “ewe clips” but near as I can tell they aren’t made anymore, which is a sad thing indeed. Cocoknits sells stoppers here that are pretty handy.)

I knit the neckband, and now the sleeves and let me tell you, this definitely scratched the itch I had to ditch the whole thing. Turns out my mum was right and a change is as good as a rest and I’ve only thought about abandoning this sweater 16 times a day instead of a million. The bummer is that it should be that when you’re finally released from Sleeve Island you pack a sweater out with you, but now It’s back to the body for me, which is a bit of a let down but I suppose it’s the price I pay for my clever evasion earlier. Still, I can’t see this going on much longer no matter how much I stretch it out.

I finished a pair of socks, a friendly rainbow pair to celebrate Pride and in a tremendous show of commitment to the sweater – I didn’t cast on more.

(I did bring down another skein of rainbow sock yarn but that was just a moment of weakness and I didn’t cast it on. I also didn’t put it away again when my strength returned so we’ll see how long this lasts. It’s sitting about a metre away from me practically waggling it’s little label at me.)

These are Must Stash Yarn in Kama Sutra (I think) and I knit a plain tube with cuff and toe and whacked a true afterthought heel in at the end. (I documented it for The Patreon, but that particular post isn’t up yet. Joe’s upstairs tut-tutting over the sound edit as we speak so it won’t be too long. I don’t know exactly what he does to it, but I do know that it sounds better after he’s done so I leave him to his own process.) Joe is still pretty one-armed and working a little slowly- the part of his broken wrist that was fixed with surgery has healed beautifully, but five months later the other broken bone is still…broken. We’re waiting on an MRI and a hand specialist, but the pandemic has everything so backed up that it will be a while. I’ve never before been grateful that Joe doesn’t rely on knitting for all the things that I do. I always thought it would be wonderful to have a knitting spouse (sharing of the stash aside) but if I imagine myself not able to knit for five months I’m not sure our relationship would survive and I’m glad he’s got other outlets. (Like editing sound.)

The next time you see me (I so vow) I will be finished this sweater, and it’s funny you know – even though I’ve done nothing but complain about how slow the linen is?

I’ve got another linen top in the queue to be next. (By the way, I’m under the impression that I’m finishing that one by the time I get on a plane next Wednesday. Hilarious, right?)