So, after two whole months of on-and-off beavering away, it’s time to take stock. On the plus side, I’ve made more progress than expected, mostly because I’ve kept at it and not laid it aside, helped enormously by the cold, wet, cloudy “summer”. But this is where doubts begin to creep in, and I can’t help feeling, looking at it laid out on the table, that it may be just a shade on the long side (they didn’t call them knit-frocks for nothing…).
Also, my calluses have grown nicely, and I could probably win this year’s Somerset All-Comers Knobbly Fingers competition if I bothered to enter.
I’ve almost finished the back now, just an inch more pattern and then it’s on to the shoulders. This is the point where my laissez-faire approach to planning comes back to bite me, since I’m just coming to the end of the current round of diamonds, just a quarter inch to go. What do I do? Finish the diamonds and just have a half-inch band of plain knitting at the top? Try and make it look neat by completing, say, another half- or whole diamond (but probably end up with sleeves that are too wide and a VERY long body)? Or just do as much of the next diamond as it takes to reach the desired length?
In practice, it will probably be the latter, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that no one notices, or, if they do, that they’ll be too polite to say anything.