Back on the job

It's all very well prattling about crobots and my crafty father, but this blog is supposed to be about unfinished projects, so yesterday I steered myself back on track. I dug out the cream-coloured wheat-ear jumper, allowed myself a sneer or two then got stuck in. First I inspected it for moth holes, and found none – it's been stored in a camphorwood chest since last millennium, so perhaps the smell really does deter the pesky blighters.

I recall now that one of the reasons I gave up on the jumper first time round was that the front had more embroidery than the back. My fondness for symmetry warred with my fedupness with the whole thing, and the fedupness won. Really, though, does this jumper need more embroidery? I think not.

The sleeve seams were already sewn up, so I only had to sew up the side seams and join the sleeves to the body. The proportions of the thing worried me a bit – the armholes were so deep it looked as though it was designed for a woman with a normal-sized torso but the Incredible Hulk's biceps. However, the bits fitted together okay, so perhaps the Chunky Upper Arm look was all the rage back when the pattern was written.

I'd forgotten that the sleeves were slightly puffed – how special.

In my haste to finally get it finished, my backstitching started out rather large and I had to go back over it more neatly; this was slightly annoying, but as the jumper had already sat in a box for fifteen years, spending another ten minutes on it hardly seemed onerous. And this was the result:

It's not perfect – or even nice! – but it's a second project to tick off the list.

All up it took me about an hour and a half, including a lunch break. I feel relieved that it's done, but also foolish to have sat on it for so long when so little work was required to get it out of my hair for ever. I'm going to give it to a women's shelter or the like.

And once that was done I could skip off to meet a friend with a light heart and a glow of self-righteousness. A good day's work, I say.