I hate knitting sleeves. No, really, I hate knitting sleeves. I don’t mind acres of stocking stitch in the bodies of jumpers but, for some reason, knitting plain sleeves really, really bores me.
I think it is because sleeves feel like they should be quick to knit; after all, the rows are much shorter than body rows. But, no matter how quickly they are going, I always think they should be going faster.
I’ve discovered that the only way I can get through sleeve-knitting with any of my sanity intact is to adopt a Zen approach: the less I care about how much of the sleeve I’ve knitted, the more of the sleeve will have been knitted. Unfortunately, the only way for me to achieve a mind-state where I’m not measuring the sleeve length every five minutes is to distract my mind from my knitting entirely, usually by way of watching a favourite DVD.
The reason for this rant? I’ve finished knitting the body of my Katje and I’m in the process of knitting the sleeves. So, last night, I sat down with my knitting and Blackpool (warning: spoilers*) on DVD and managed to get the rest of the first sleeve finished. (Apologies, as always, for the scary headless web-cam photos but I am supposed to be studying today!)
One down, one to go!
* Spoilers doesn’t really cover it. The warning should really say “BBC have decided to summarise entire plot of series, including how every plot thread turns out, in four paragraphs.”