Whoddathunkit?

I finished off the ribbng last night and bound it off.  this generally means that it is as long as it will get.  Honestly though, we shall see.

When I was trying it on last night, I was feeling that I may need to do the short rows over.  I had hoped for a wee bit more  extra length than I have on the back of the sweater and, if I am 100 percent honest, I wish I had started the short rows a wee bit farther to the front.

I started the short rows at the underarm side purl rows.  It's okay but in order to get more rows,  I would have had narrow the back dropped part.  That wasn't the look I was wanting at all.  This is okay and it is a good two inches  longer than the front..  It will be fine and yet I have that niggling stupid voice in my head going, it's not good enough.  I won't really know till after it is washed at the end of the whole knit.

I worked last night till it was bound off, but it was still kind of early and the kids were at home over night, so it was quiet.  I picked up stitches for sleeve one and as I was doing so, I started thinking about where this sweater seemed to be going and what it was wanting to be, if I am going in the right direction, that is.  

I was going to just do an ordinary sweater but I do love the cropped look so I changed that to be more like the the Soldotna or the Sipila sweaters.  But what about sleeves?  I had not considered sleeves before.  Both of these sweaters show short sleeves and both look good with longer sleeves too.  But what do I want?  How will I want to wear it?  

Well I know that it will be worn mostly with wide legged pants, such as the Glebe Pants from Muna and Broad or my soon to be sewn Winslow Culottes from Helen's Closet.  I like that look.   I also know that this is wool but it is a sport weight so when I wear it in winter, I will be wearing it with a shirt underneath, either a t neck or other high cut neckline, always with long sleeves.  I know this because those are the shirts I wear in winter as a base layer and when I wore my Myrtle Sweater (Harrisville Shetland, also a sport weight) last winter, I needed to wear a good warm base with it to keep me feeling cozy.  From that same experience I also know that I don't really want the sleeves for this sweater to be full length.   My poor Myrtle's sleeves were always getting wet.

Armed with this information, I took the decision to go with a short sleeve.  Not quite a short sleeve as the Soldotna shows. That appears to be only a couple rows and the ribbing.  I'm going with my usual couple inches before the ribbing. 

That means that I will have this sweater done in very short order,  well before Stash Dash is done.  Whoddathunkit? This is going to be my highest finishing total to date!  Pretty good for a year that three weeks ago, I felt even my median goal of three thousand metres was way out of reach.  Whoddathunkit?