Sweaterless Sleeves

Sweaterless Sleeves

 

We've all heard of the sleeveless sweater but did you ever consider the sweaterless sleeve as being a thing?  A useful thing at that?

Well it had never occurred to me before my sister (caregiver to my 89 year old mother) asked me if I could make them for Mom for while she is drinking her tea in bed before she gets up to start the dressing routines.  Mom didn't want to have to struggle into a sweater upon first waking up and then back out of it again in less than an hour.

Think about it.  For a woman in her 9th decade putting on and taking off a sweater is...well...calisthenics.

So when my sister suggested the project last Wedensday, I was immediately on board.  When she asked how long it would take to do two sleeves I calculated based on a tube shaped carry sack I'd made a year and a half ago which took me just under a week so I said probably 10 days or so.

But after we finished texting and I was musing on the project feeling the excitement build, I realized that the bottom circle for that carry-sack had taken over 30% of the time and there would be no bottom circles on the sleeves.  This alone cut the estimate down to under a week.  Then I realized I could use thicker yarn and a fatter hook.  More time slashing but hard to calculate. 

Finally, I could use a taller stitch.  Could I have actually just whittled the estimate down to one day per sleeve?  Maybe.

I had to find out but by starting one to see how long it would take me to reach four inches which I estimated to be about a quarter of the length.  Turned out later the length needed to be 18 inches not 16.  But close enough for estimating.

To get started though I had to dig the yarn out of my stash in the portable cloth closet which amounted to an hour long calisthenics routine for me.  

Since I did not remember where in the stack the bag with my yarn of choice was I had to pull out all four 22 gallon and 8 11 gallon zippered bags out and unzip them to remind myself of their contents even when I knew the bag I was after was one of the three 22 gallon ones on the bottom of the pile. 

The yarn I chose was Lion Brand Comfy Cotton Blend in Whipped Cream.

By the time my caregiver arrived two hour later I had two inches of tube and by the time she finished sweeping and mopping (during which task it is best I stay put in one out of the way spot) I had another four inches.  So proof of concept and proof each sleeve was potentially a one day project.  

Possibly even half a day if I hadn't been coming of a months long hook hiatus.  Remembering what happened last July when I spent two long days crocheting a water bottle carry bag for my sister's birthday, I curbed my enthusiasm and stretched my estimate for completion to Sunday afternoon.  

I did not want to suffer a week of inflammation in my hands and elbows again.  That project in July had been my first since Ed died the last week of September last year.  That had been a 8 month hiatus and working that up for sister proved to me I was ready to embrace the fiber art joy again.  But because I had overdone it, I was in too much pain for over a week and by then I was busy packing up all my yarn and projects along with everything else for the move into my new place.

This past week was the first full week since I moved in that my daily routines have been more about daily living than about moving stuff from here to there--packing, schlepping, unpacking, unboxing, placing furniture and appliances, moving large items around the floorspace, moving smaller items from box to shelf to cupboard to closet....ad infinitum.  I'm talking 8 to 12 hour days since late July.  Except for the two heatwaves.

Speaking of the heatwaves.  I got out of the habit of blogging about the moving adventure while it was so hot and then I kept forgetting to take the pictures to go with the stories worth telling.  I'm currently getting the pictures of things as they are now which, except for a few shelves and corners, will look much the same going forward.  I hope to put up that post soon.

Meanwhile to conclude the sweaterless sleeves story:  I finished the second one at midnight last night.  And that included having to take out and put back in 8 inches of the tube because I had increased too much over the elbow and the top section kept sliding down to the elbow.

The 'tall' stich I used was the one I made up back in 2013.  It involves a round of chain loops that can be anywhere from 4 to 9 chains in length.  On the next pass those loops are twisted by the hand not holding the hook and pinned by a single crochet in the top.  Whether or not you put a chain between the twisted loops is optional.  Depends on how lacy you want it.  The effect is a row of cursive Ls with a space between so I call it my LOL stitch.  There have been other times when I thought I had made something up only to find it in a book or chart or blog or on line somewhere as already having a long history.  For this one it has been nearly a decade and I still have seen nothing like it elsewhere.