Does it fit? Does it fit?

I'd read in a few places on Ravelry that the arms of this sweater were tight, and I'm not the slimmest of individuals, so I suddenly decided that I wanted to know if the sleeves were going to fit. The sleeves were all dry, so... time for mattress stitch!

I already knew I didn't want to seam with the yarn I was knitting with. Too thick; bulky seams are never nice, and if of course they further tightened the arms I'd be in trouble. I looked at the effect of the knitted fabric, and decided the overall color was kind of a smoky blue-grey. I decided to use some Araucania Nature Wool in a smoky blue-grey — the one I am supposed to be using to knit that Vandyke stitch cardi I started a million years ago. There's plenty to spare, so I figured it wouldn't hurt. The color is a bit light, but this is, after all, supposed to be an invisible stitch. And I like the weight and how it works out with this yarn.

Then I tried the arms on to see if they fit. This is a bad attempt at me trying to show you that I can, indeed, get the arms on:



The arms are the right length — yay for holding my breath and knitting them an inch shorter than the pattern called for. I have shrimpy arms. It's definitely snug, and if I were knitting this again, I'd buy a little extra yarn and I'd make a 9" armhole instead of 8", and make the arms correspondingly wider. I don't have yarn to spare as it is, and I am pretty sure this won't be too tight to wear. At least, I hope not. On the other hand I really, really need to lose weight, so maybe a tight sweater will motivate me ... ;-)

To answer the comments on the last post, yep, those are freesias (and sweet peas and roses — opening even more today). And yep, this is spring in San Diego. And yep, April's right.

And Earin. You are INSANE. Size *17*!?!?!

Just flat-out crazy.