No Such Place

You've heard of it, right?

Sleeve Island.

Marooned on Sleeve Island.

That place where knitters the blogosphere over find themselves once they've finished the backs and the fronts of their sweaters. The sweater is practically done.

Only it isn't really.

It only seemed that way.

Before the sleeves were started.

Because, as it turns out, they really aren't that small. (Why does it always end this way?)

Once we cast on the sleeves, the depth of our folly becomes entirely clear. It isn't even that the sweater is no-where near done. It is that the sweater has no end. It is Interminable.

Nowadays, I try to deal with this by doing the sleeves first. Ideally, I would do the sleeves first, then the front(s), then the back.

Because even I couldn't fool myself into thinking the sweater is practically done if the back hasn't been started.

In practice, though, I generally do the back first (can't resist), then a sleeve. And then the front and the remaining sleeve duke it out for last place.

Or (more often) I choose a pattern with very small sleeves. Or no sleeves at all.

Clever me!

And in this backwards manner, I've steered clear.

But the Island always remains out there . . . because there's always the risk that I will leave the sleeves to the last and run aground.

But check this out:




In Elizabeth Zimmerman's seamless yoke sweater, you start with the body as usual. You do the front and back simultaneously, in the round.

But before you can get too far -- before you can even approach a feeling of substantial progress -- you have to do the sleeves.

I repeat: You have to do the sleeves -- both of them -- up to the underarms, anyway -- before you can go any further.

NO SLEEVE ISLAND.

No awful feelings of helplessness and despair.

Sure, you still have to do the sleeves. (No way around that.) But you're not stuck.

There is a very clear route back home.

And the way isn't so far.

Sleeve Island?

No such place.

It's more like Sleeve Isthmus.