Knitting Today: Re-Knitting a Sleeve on the Mama Christa's Shell

 When I finished the Mama Christa's Shell last December, the sleeve was a little snug when I put it on over the dress over which I will wear it.  I did not make much of it at the time because I was thinking I was on a weight loss journey.  Well, last week I put on the Shell and found that my weight loss journey had dead ended.  Sort of like most weight loss journeys I have been on recently.

So...I found the remaining (12!!!) yards of yarn, pulled out the side seam stitches for a couple of inches, then frogged the sleeves.  There had been four rounds of garter ridges in those sleeves.  Before re-knitting I divided the little ball of white Plymouth Encore yarn that was left from the project and attached half of it to the unraveled yarn from each sleeve and balled it up again.

At that point I started at the shoulder seam and, using a 16" circular Chiaogoo lace needle in US 6, picked up stitches down to the side seam on the first side of the sleeve then back to the top and picked up another set of stitches until the side seam.  There were 65 stitches for each sleeve.  I decided to knit until there was just enough yarn left to bind off.  Then repeated for the other sleeve.  I knitted in the round and had enough yarn to knit three garter ridges for each sleeve.  There was a minute ball of yarn left for each sleeve, so this time the Yarn Chicken did NOT win!!!

This was not a very long re-knitting project and came out pretty well.  You can see that there is plenty of room in the sleeve, even though it is not worn over the correct dress.  I am happy with it.

This is the sleeve bind off. I just learned this particular bind off.

1.  Knit the first stitch

2. Knit the second stitch

3. Insert the left needle into those two stitches

4. Knit through the back loop

5. From there just knit the next stitch and repeat steps 3 and 4. 

Works like a charm and is nice and flexible and stretchy.