Bang the Sweater Slowly

The neck, the lace, the shoulders, the body, contrast bands, button and buttonhole bands, all banged out quickly.

All that's left is the sleeves, and the banging has slowed to a lazy thud. Why? Not for lack of effort, let me quickly say. Sleeves are the worm in the apple of top-down sweaters. When you do them one at a time, you constantly are throwing a big ball of sweater around and around in your lap as you knit these smaller tubes attached to the main bulk. This time, I essayed two-at-a-time on two circular needles. They're more likely to match, another knitter said. (True. I often knit flat sleeves simultaneously on straight needles and they do match better.) It's easy, she said. So much faster, she said. Well..... not so much, in my experience.

There's the skootching of the stitches down to the needle end ready to go. Then finding the other end of the correct circ. Finding the right yarn. Untangling said yarn from the other sleeve's yarn. Tugging the first couple of stitches tight so as not to have a gappy column between needles. Four times on every round. A method for even sleeves it might be; an aid to rapid banging it is not. So while I skootch and untangle, here's a video to watch. Kinda dirty, pretty weird, pretty misogynistic, outstanding male beauty, great tune: