First of Three Sleeves

There's a first time for everything. Today I made my first sleeve. I had my daughter do a bit more work on her own than she has done in the past. My ulterior motive was to get to my knitting. I was almost done with the shoulders of the front panel and anxious to begin the sleeves!

But there were lots of conversations dh and I have had together about how to conduct school when I have a kindergartener and a fourth grader vying for my time. The elder would need to become a little more independent in her work while the younger needs more work-with-me time and attention to get the hang of things like how to hold a pencil and how to draw alphabet letters next to each other rather than jumbled up atop each other.

So the younger was busy with "coloring time." The elder was noting the procedure and conclusion from a science experiment. And I began my first sleeve. It started okay. Not the greatest cast on, but acceptable. I kept going. I did decide to make the sleeves about 1½ inches shorter than my pattern indicates, so I knitted on to see how that would go. A little more than half way through the sleeve, the nice stockinette is marred by a where I had to remove half a row. After an interruption I picked up the needles and began to knit a purl row. Drat! I went along and finished so I could see how long my sleeve would be. But now there were two mistakes. I could have lived with either one, but not two, so this sleeve is doomed. When I complete the second sleeve I'll unravel this one and begin it again.

I did learn the long, slender, super flexible plastic needles I have for the ribbing are very nice to work with but are not suited for casting on. At least not for me. So I'll cast on to a sturdier needle and that problem will be solved. Now I'm hoping I will only need to make three sleeves for this sweater! I can be certain I will only need to complete three. With some luck I'll only have to begin two more times. And I'm hoping for smoother increases, decreases and no more unraveling half rows.

Here I have my mistake-riddled model sleeve and the ribbing of the sleeve I plan to attach to the sweater. I tried to hold the yarn in my fingers rather than my fist this morning. So I was going along quite slowly and only achieved this poor little inch of ribbing while my dd was in Latin class. When I pinned the sleeve for its photo I noticed more practice with the tension is needed. Occasionally one stitch is looser than its neighbors. Also the scar where I ripped out 2/3 of the row glares at me. I see I'll also need to change my decrease methods at the right side of the sleeve cap. This will probably be hidden in the seam, but I still know it is there. The new cast on is much more uniform in tension as I used the straight metal needle.