[insert the sound of screaming]...

i am sipping an emergency cup of don't be crazy tea. allow me to explain.

so, i've been working intermittently on that grey (and black) cardi. the original plan pipe-dream called for it to be completed by the end of this week, but sanity interceded and the target date got pushed back to maybe sometime next week... maybe...? after changing my mind at least a hundred times, i finally knitted the ribbing on the collar...

and the lower edge of the body. sexy, no???

all that was left at this point was the front (zipper) band and the sleeves. the zipper felt too much like the final element of the garment, so i put the stitches for the first sleeve onto the needles and carried on with my task...

until i was almost ready to begin the cuff ribbing, when it occurred to me that this sleeve was a bit wider than desired.

seriously, i shoved a fist in there, and there was still room for a friend. that is more sleeve than anyone needs.

i should note that this realization occurred at about three o'clock this morning [yes, we do keep odd hours around these parts], so i crammed the whole project back into the bag before i did something rash, like ripping out the whole sleeve. fast forward to about three in the afternoon, and... well... i ripped out the whole sleeve. seriously!

it's a problem of slope. i was decreasing roughly every 2.5", which is pretty standard for this type of sleeve. [the stitch markers help me to keep track of the decrease rows so that i can satisfy my special brand of OCD when i get to the second sleeve—and, yes, that one stitch marker flipped the other way around is making me very uncomfortable].

this sleeve, however, needs a more drastic slope. so i did what one does in these situations. first i found a spare circular needle (left) a few sizes smaller than the working needle (right)...

the cardi is knitted top-down (start at the neck, finish at the hip), so i went back up to the first row of grey stitches after the black/grey section (basically, back to the armpit region), and picked up that row of stitches with the smaller needle.

once i had that whole round of stitches on the new needle, i removed the working needle (and the stitch markers) and ripped out all that hard work. my people refer to this heart-breaking process as frogging.  so, there i was with the armpit-level row of stitches all ready to go.

oh... and this.

after unraveling the inevitable tangles, i managed to organize all the frogged yarn into a ball.

i will transfer the live stitches back to the working needle as i knit the next row, and i have to do a bit of math to determine a new rate of decrease, but that will happen when my inner voice quiets down. until then, i'm gonna pour another cup of calming tea and watch the latest episode of The Doctor Blake Mysteries followed by the latest episode of Shetland—because nothing cures a bout of temporary insanity like an extra helping of murder tv.