Another Craft Plan Fail!

 I had hoped to finish another jumper by the end of April. Didn't quite make it as you can see.

It still needs a neckline and half of the second sleeve.

I'm a bit peeved that I couldn't keep to my plan. But on the other hand I'm not beating myself up too much as this was in the nature of an experiment to see if I could follow the principles I learned in the Carole Feller class at Glasgow last autumn and adapt a pattern to fit me properly. It's sort of a dry run for making one of Carole's patterns in one of her own wool lines. 

I checked my tension and then chose the pattern size to make based on what fitted most of  my measurements, not just the bust size, which meant doing two sizes smaller than I normally would. This  worked for the body and I made that slightly shorter than the pattern said - I like my jumpers long  but I don't want them round my knees! That was all really straightforward. The sleeves however were a problem. Since the body size had been fine I thought the sleeves would be fine too, but sadly that was not the case. and when I had finished the first sleeve bar the rib I tried it on and discovered that it was far too wide and flappy. Daunted by the thought that I was going to have to do some serious arithmetic, not to mention the pain of taking out almost a whole sleeve I bundled the whole thing up, stuck it in a project bag  and knitted some socks instead. 

I took it out about ten days ago, did some maths, knitted the second sleeve two sizes smaller even than the body. making notes as I went. I'm not 100% happy with the result but happy enough. Then I ripped out the one that was too wide, and started it again. I've just started the decreases so in theory that shouldn't take too much longer. Then there's the neckline which looks far too wide to me, but I'm hoping that by the time I've knitted it it will be fine. It's supposed to be low; not quite a boat one, but almost. 

I hope that I'm going to get a wearable jumper out of this. If not it has cost me next to nothing as I got the yarn very cheaply from a local designer when the line was discontinued by Rowan and I've learned some useful lessons about patterns and fitting. 

It would be nice if my next plan came in on time though!