Seetaa no Monogatari Part 6

I talked to Kim and she said that my sweater looks ready to split off.  After a lot of hemming and hawing and measuring myself, I bit the bullet and tried to do some sweater math to make sure I'm on track.

I really struggled with my sweater math (somehow, to my brain, sweater math like this is not so simple as accounting math where it's mostly adding and subtracting; sweater math is a lot of conversion between metric and imperial (aka cm & in) and then calculating that with my body measurements.  Perhaps it's because I'm not very familiar with metric or I'm simply over thinking this, I don't know ... all I know is that when I calculate it and then see all those numbers in metric (which is actually more accurate and what I'd like to learn to use), my brain starts to flip out and question if that's (aka those numbers) are really right. :P  Then I do it in imperial (in) and then wonder why my metric numbers aren't the same as my imperial numbers when I convert it ... I dunno; I think it's my brain struggling with the whole metric thing. :(  I just can't seem to get it. :'() ... Anyways ... the bottom line is that I'm not entirely confident of my results.  (I'm not even going to explain exactly how I tried to figure out my measurements and what I need to do to make my sweater (as most people aren't in the whole math thing anyways and find it boring).)  

So, I just took the plunge and split off the arms and body just as Kim recommended.  I took out my spare cables and Chiaogoo US 5 bamboo needles and began the process of splitting off the right and left sleeves.  For each sleeve, I casted on 21 stitches for a total of 76 stitches for the sleeves and happily stitched away in the round.  I finished off my first skein on the left side and used a new skein for the right side.  Here's what it looks like:

Left side

Right side

I did 16 regular rows on the right side before I realized that I needed to start decreasing:

So, at row 26, my sleeve was still rather loose so, I started decreasing every row for the next 3 rows:

Now, that looks better, right?  I kept going in the round (no decreasing) for the next 5 rows before my next fitting.  I tried it on again and realized that my sleeve was still a bit puffy and now there was a strange crease where it should be smooth when my arm is next to my body.  It appears that I might've casted on too many stitches. :'(

So .... I ripped out my right sleeve all the way back to my life line (thank goodness for that life line! :)) and re-casted on 15 stitches for a total of 70 stitches for the sleeve and did 8 rows to see how that fit:

The sleeve on my right side feels so much better and the fit seems to be better too.  I did 10 rows before I started decreasing every other row for the next 17 rows:

There's now 50 stitches for the sleeve and it's fitting much better.  The sleeve feels snug but not too tight or as loose as it previously was.  I measured my arm and it decreases about half an inch every inch so, by the time I reach my 3/4 sleeve mark, I'll need to have a total of 45 stitches.  So, (scarily enough,) I did some sweater math (again) and .... discovered that I either should've decreased every 6th row to begin with or I need to decrease every 12th row now.  So ... what did I do?  You guessed it! :P

I ripped out the sleeve back to the 10th row, decreased on the 11th row, did 5 regular rounds, decreased again on the 17th row, did another 5 regular rounds .... you get the idea. :P  After the 3rd decrease (row 28), I started decreasing every 3rd row.  Here's what it looks like at row 46 (with 52 stitches still left for my sleeve):

Now, I can see that my left side is way too big and skewing the way the sweater falls on me.  That side will also need to be taken out but, since I only have 1 pair of metal needles, it'll have to wait until the right side is done.  

I finally hit my elbow!  I've been decreasing every 3 rows (on the 4th row).  I stopped decreasing at row 63 and have been simply knitting in the round at this point (row 72).  I now have 45 stitches for my sleeve:

And, look! :)  This is what the inside of my sleeve looks like:

I think it looks pretty good.  I'm so much happier with this sleeve (finally)! ;) I'm slowly getting to my 3/4 sleeve! :P 

So ... After 86 rows, here's what my completed sleeve looks like:

Voila!  One completed sleeve! :)  And, here's the other side  (done almost the exact same way as the left side; here's the difference: I started to just knit in the round at row 59 with a total of 48 stitches, ending with a total of 81 rows):

And, here's what my sweater looks like with two (2) sleeves:

So lesson learned: Sweater math will make my life easier (aka less ripping out) if I can only figure out how to do it and do it right - the first time. :P  Also, this whole top-down sweater thing?  Loving it!! :)  I think I would've gone bonkers if I couldn't try on my sweater as I go. :P  Or be majorly irritated (to put it mildly) with myself for not doing the calculations and merrily went on my way to making a sweater that's either awkward fitting or doesn't fit at all. :P

Btw, my goal to meet NaNoSweMo?  Well, I didn't meet it ... as of the end of November, (despite all my ripping out), I only stitched 13,390 stitches (I think).  Well, as you can see from the pictures, I don't have much of a sweater at this point so, it's kinda hard to make the 50,000 stitch mark without a good bulk of the sweater! :P  We'll see how long it'll take me to get there! :P  At least I got a bit of the top and the sleeves done! :D

Now, with just about a little less than a fourth of the second ball left,  I can start on the body portion! :D  More to come on my sweater adventure! :P