le Tour de Gansey, part deux: Stage Eight

It may be a rest day for the cyclists, but for those of us crazy enough to try to knit an adult-sized gansey in three weeks, there is no rest to be had. I’m making good progress though; enough that it’s time to share…

Stage Eight: Sleeve #1

When we last looked in on le Tour de Gansey, we had just completed the shoulder strap in Stage Seven, joining the front left shoulder section to the back left shoulder section. From there, 28 stitches were picked up down the side of the arm hole, the stitches from the gusset were taken from the holder and placed on the needle, and 28 stitches were picked back up the other side of the armhole until we’d reached the shoulder strap again. From there, the knitting followed the pattern motifs established earlier, and the gusset was decreased back down to a 2-stitch purled faux-seam, forming a complete diamond:

(It’s a little bit crazy how much I love the armpits of my sweater). After the 5th set of purl bars in the pattern motifs, decreases were established one stitch on either side of the faux-seam, every 6 rows. After 16 purl bars had been completed, a definition ridge mirroring the one from the body was knit, and we entered the plain area, where decreasing became more frequent, at every 4 rows. From there, decreases continued until there were only 32 stitches; at that point, a 2×2 ribbed cuff was knit until it was long enough to cover the wrist. Here’s a photo of the whole length of the sleeve:

Here is the underside of the sleeve:

And here is the top, in which you can see how the shoulder strap flows seamlessly into the central pattern motif of the sleeve:

And there you have it! One sleeve down, one more to go. And then of course, there’s the neckline finishing of Stage 10. Think I can do it all before the cyclists have their little romp around the Champs-Élysées?