For me, that last part of any sweater is the sleeves. And for a number of reasons, the sleeves are the hardest part for me.

Why Are The Sleeves The Hardest Part?

They aren’t the largest piece of fabric that gets created on a sweater (usually not anyway). And you’d think that I’d want to fly through the last phase of a garment as large as a man’s large cardigan.

But it seems I always struggle with this last piece of the garment.

Determining the width and length of the sleeve is always a little tricky. Especially with a set-in sleeve. Figuring out the shaping of the sleeve requires knowing the final width and length. But you also want the shaping to look natural and even. So, often, the shaping is done a bit more gradually toward the cuff and more slanted toward the shoulder. And this requires a lot more careful counting of stitches.

Since I do most of my sleeves in the direction from cuff-to-shoulder, the fabric gets wider and wider. So it never goes faster…only slower.

And then after I successfully get through the monumental task of completing a sleeve, I have to make a second one.

Yes, sleeves can be an annoying pain. I’m sure many a vest design started as a full sweater, but the designer didn’t want to make sleeves.

Thermal Beanie Crochet-a-Long

One of the best parts of writing this blog is getting to meet the readers. Yesterday, I virtually-met Fred over video chat (he’s in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., so a flight to meet up seemed excessive). He is a delightful guy and while I wasn’t able to help him a lot on the video-chat with the hat, we had a wonderful conversation. I also sent him the link to the tutorial video I did for the Thermal Beanie. If anyone who has purchased Tony’s pattern would like access to the video, just let me know and I’m happy to e-mail it to you.

Current Tunisian Crochet

I’ve just started the more slanted increase section on the first sleeve. And I have about 7 more inches to go.

And I’m still not certain I’ll have enough yarn to finish.