I found myself in knitting limbo at one point last week, wanting something to knit in the evening after a long day, but not wanting to start another sweater at a time when I felt overwhelmed with the number of UFOs hanging around.
Looking through the various project bags I remembered this project from last April using On Line LInie 125. I knew I had to knit the sleeves and thought it would be a quick easy project although that proved not to be the case.
I only had 4 skeins of yarn and I wasn't sure if this was going to be enough or how much of a sleeve I would get. I thought I could pick up the sleeve at the shoulder and knit down, ending the sleeve when I finished the first two skeins. But I really didn't know what I was doing. I don't really understand top down knitting well enough, or how to accommodate the shaping of the sleeve cap as I knit from the body of the sweater.
I suppose I could have looked the information up, but it was actually easier for me to just rip out the sleeve spread the sweater out, and write a quick pattern for a sleeve including the cap shaping, then knit it flat from the hem up. I guessed that I would have enough yarn for elbow length sleeves.
I was wrong. I ran out of yarn before the cap was finished. Since I decided I don't really want shorter sleeves I had to come up with another plan. Luckily, in the bin where I store odd balls and leftover bits of yarn, I found two colors of Dolcino which work perfectly and I cam up with the striped sleeve shown above. It seemed rather lucky that I had two colors that worked so well and knitted up to a fabric with similar hand to the original sweater.
I started the second sleeve last night and should finish it soon. I don't have anything written down, and am using the first sleeve as a pattern for the second sleeve. To finish the sweater I will use the two colors of Dolcino to finish the neckline, carrying the colors from the sleeves to the body of the sweater. I think it will work out quite well.