My holiday has trickled away nicely.  I spent the first four days of it in Melbourne and it was lovely.  I’d love to tell you more about it and maybe I will in a bit (except that we all know how those kinds of blogger promises turn out, don’t we?) but for now I have a more pressing concern to voice.

I picked up Sahara again because the temperatures were in the 30s – and will be again this weekend.  And while I love touching wool, sometimes it’s just not an option.  Looking at my Ravelry page I see that I didn’t say when I had started – but blog posts tell me about August some time.  Which seems right, hot weather and all that.  I also see I went down a needle size which is annoying as I have just started the ribbing in the bottom in the size called for in the pattern.  I wonder if I care enough to rip it?

I did some mods on this and although I didn’t note the basics, I kept very good notes on the changes.  Which is a blessing because it’s been picked up and put down lots.

I did an extra repeat on the neck lace and, as predicted, that makes it a bit tight there.  Not in a stretchy way, more in the way a halter neck pulls.  Which is slightly irritating but not more than that.  I don’t think I’d do that again, but I’m not fussed – certainly not enough to unpick it!  I suspect it will be a bit too big, actually, since it fits about right now and I am a bit plump from winter.  I also made it longer, partly because I always tug things down and I am FINALLY learning to make them longer to avoid this, and partly because I didn’t do short row shaping or darts at the boobs, and so expected the front to be a bit higher than the back.  Although I discovered today that there is lovely shirttail shaping at the bottom.  I really am enjoying this pattern.

However, none of these are the issues.  As intimated, I have reached the end of the body – almost.  And now the question of sleeves arises.  I have two full balls of the Elizabeth Lavold silky wool left (which is lovely, I would definitely consider working with it again, even if I did have to pay the ridiculous price) which surely is enough to do full sleeves.  That was my original intention, if I had enough yarn.

But now I am wondering if it wouldn’t be better with short sleeves, as a t-shirt type top.  The yarn is lovely and soft and cool.  And the extra repeat at the neck means it isn’t too booby at all – just exactly enough cleavage for a summer top, I feel.  But with long sleeves, I think I’d be inclined to wear it over things.  Which is all to the good, but maybe not as practical. 

I really enjoyed this pattern, maybe I should make another in a more wooly yarn, since I seem to enjoy knitting things twice anyway.  And that one can have long sleeves, and this one short.

However, since I have been mulling the question for a good hour now, I thought I’d ask the internet if it had an opinion – do you?  I really like the look of the long sleeve ones on ravelry, but not that much more than the short sleeved ones.  I have reached the point of ‘really?  This decision is this hard?’

Also, I listened to this today, which I think sheds some more light on it:

I’m off to rip the last three rows and redo them in a smaller needle.  Sigh.