Well, that didn't work.

Fairly major 'FAIL' on the knitting front this week.

Having removed and re-knit the stained portions of my Aran Sampler Sweater, this week I sewed all the pieces together for the first time.  I tried it on and stepped in front of the mirror.

The first obvious problem is that the sleeves are too short. If I pull the shoulders up so the design lines are vertical, then the sleeves are about 10cm (4 inches) too short. They are meant to be full length and when I knit the cuff I actually thought they might end up too long.

The second problem, which may not be as clear in the photo, is that the different wool I used for the main part of the sleeve (not the cuff) is a really different cream colour and stands out like a sore thumb.  Even DH, who hadn't been able to tell the difference when the pieces were separate, immediately remarked on the bi-coloured effect.

It's also not the most slimming jumper in the world. I haven't knit the neck yet, but that will help pull in the neckline and support the shoulders.  It was a drop shoulder design which I turned into a modified drop shoulder, but even so there is still some unattractive bulk under the armholes. The textured front is doing nothing to disguise my tummy.

After considering it in the mirror from different angles for a time and feeling really depressed, I think I have no option but to take the sleeves back off, pull out the non-matching wool, and try and buy some wool which matches better then re-knit them (and knit them longer this time). In retrospect I probably should have added some waist shaping in the back but I'm not going to pull that out.  It was tempting to put the whole thing in the bin but I haven't hung onto this yarn for 20 years and put so much effort into the Aran front to give up now.

Other knitting this week has been a few more inches on the Capelet where I am almost ready to seam together the cape part of the poncho, Clue 5 of the Battle of Five Armies MKAL, and the second sock of the Mixalot Socks (and the short row heel went a lot better on the second sock).

On the quilting front, I dug out all the completed blocks of my 25 Block hand applique quilt and put them up on the design wall.  It seems that I have completed 17 blocks so far so I have another eight to go.  I spent a couple of hours preparing the templates and tracing the background and fabric shapes for Block 18, and have started stitching it. If I ever finish this quilt, it is going to look so nice.  According to my notes, I started this in 2007 with the plan to complete it in one year.  ha ha ha ha ha ha haha

What's in the box?

I had a very interesting delivery this week.

What's in the box???

Could it be 120 part-works to build a Japanese dollshouse??  Why yes, I think it could be.

What's that, Sharon?  All the instructions are in Italian?? Well, you're not insane at all, are you??

he he he

Yes, after reading a feature in a British dollshouse magazine about an American lady living in Italy, who had built a gorgeous Japanese-style dollshouse from kits published as part-works by De Agostini, I made the fatal error of looking it up online.  The more I looked at it, the more I liked it and thought how fun it would be to build.  It was a small step from there to Italian eBay, where I soon found an entire full set of kits on sale for about 1/10th of their original price.  Despite being skint, I decided to cash in some Premium bonds and snatch it up before it was gone.  After an interesting exchange of communications relying heavily on Google Translate, my big box arrived this week by courier.  I'm really looking forward to the day I can start translating the instructions and get going on it, but that will have to wait until my dollshouse workshop gets set up and I can unpack all my gear.  Still no word from our erratic kitchen fitter on when that might be.  In the meantime, after unpacking and checking all the kits, they've gone back in the box and into the attic storage room to wait for their day in the sun.  And I want to put in this post for posterity how supportive DH was about this purchase. Instead of telling me off for buying crazy things when I'm about to be made redundant, he congratulated me on my bargain buy. He's the wonderful product of 25 years of training and I'm grateful.