Ravellenics Sweater: Day 7

Yesterday was a spectacularly successful day of knitting that put me a day ahead on my goals! I had a 2-hour meeting yesterday with a few of my favorite colleagues who don't mind at all if I knit during meetings. They know I am usually even more attentive if my hands are busy. So that really helped. Here's how far I got yesterday:

It kind of looks like some sort of weird crab, doesn't it? LOL!

Several people have asked me why I knit the sleeves before the body. It's entirely a matter of preference. There's no right or wrong way. I prefer knitting the sleeves first because then I don't have the bulk of the body of the sweater to wrestle with while knitting the comparatively small circumference sleeves. I also mentioned this a few days ago when I discussed hand painted yarns. I also find that if I wait until after the body is done, I'm more likely to get lazy and knit short sleeves instead of long.

I know what you are thinking. OK, so I didn't have to wrestle with the body while knitting the sleeves, but now I have to wrestle with the sleeves flopping around while knitting the body. What's up with that? The solution:

I fold the sleeves over the back of the body and secure the entire thing with this giant safety-pin style stitch holder. Works perfectly for keeping the sleeves out of the way and neatly contained while I knit the body.