Yesterday was about sleep.  I slept soundly till 10 and then spent most of the morning dozing in a chair.  I followed that up with exhaustion by 6 and being back in bed by 7:30, where I slept soundly till 3:00.  7:30 to 3:00 is a lot of sleep and I did go back soundly to sleep for another few hours after.  A lot of sleep for a day, but I feel a bit more myself this morning.  I'm going to take my vitamins and have a good nap again today and tomorrow and with a little bit of luck I will skip whatever thing I may have been getting or it will be so mild, I won't hardly notice.  Keeping my fingers crossed.  

The needle I am using on my sweater has become suddenly short.  Very short.  

Yes, It is a sleeve, which can only mean one thing.

The body is complete!  

I have to tell you though.  The last few inches were a real  struggle.  I know exactly why some of the sweaters I really love are too short.  There is a point where I really have to talk myself through to a better length.  About 12 inches, I get overwhelmed, I think.  It's when all the increases are done and I have knit a few inches of plain, and I am faced with the task of just knitting back and forth and back and forth across the rows.  It is particularly bad on cardigans.  In the round is easier.  That is just like one big sock, but cardigans you have to go back and forth and those long rows of purls, even wrapping the stitches my way,  which is really more of a pick than a wrap, is the second most natural thing in knitting (knitting through the back loop is the first most natural thing) becomes a kind of irritant.  These are really long rows and it is so easy to feel that this sweater is never going to end.  It is so easy to feel like it is never going to get done.  I have to look beyond the hem, beyond this sweater to use that long knitting time wisely, to plan my next project. I take the time to become inspired by marvelous colour searches or fantastic home projects on Ravelry and then dream about what is going to be next for me.  I might start a plain sock or even as shawl as I did this time.  On this particular sweater the Scotties Tournament of Hearts helped, being something else that I could focus on rabidly while knitting.  

Once again, I managed to talk myself beyond that point and all of a sudden, I realized that my ball of yarn was getting rather thin looking and it was time to change over to garter stitch.  I kept watching the the faux cardigan split and every time I looked it still looked too short and then magically, it looks wonderful and just right in scale for a draping flowing bottom of a longer cardigan.  I knit some garter and then all of a sudden it was time to bind off.  

So sleeves.  Just a few short rows to make the top of the sleeve sit nicer in the underarm and then I can switch to dpns, for nice plain knitting.  Once again, I have moved to 4 mm needles for this, where the rest of the sweater is 3.75 mm needles.  Round and around, I tend to knit tighter.  The bigger needles make the switch unnoticeable once everything is washed and blocked.  

All in all, everything is moving along nicely.  This sweater isn't going along as fast as I originally hoped but then again, I did a fair bit of other stuff through the month of January. Sorting through my second bedroom has been a huge benefit for me.  Improving access to my fibre is big. Getting my fibre stash to Ravelry is big.  Getting a dedicated weaving place and a place where I can work on my quilt without taking it down all the time is big.  Getting a better place for my Julia spinning wheel is big.  

It's been a big month of effort and so far in February, it is all paying off.