Vanquishing the red menace

I thought this day would never come – today I finished the red jumper!

I've been plugging away intermittently since I last posted about it, refusing to be deterred by the inevitable stuff-ups, such as the back, which provoked some sighing and tutting. When I resumed it I realised my calculations from the previous session were wrong and that if I continued as planned it would to be too long, so I ripped back about 15 rows – and the instant I'd finished, realised that I'd been right in the first place and that I needed those 15 rows back. Numerate people must find life so much easier than I do.

This is the sort of setback that usually, well, sets me back – sometimes for eight or ten years, as previous posts have probably made clear by now. But this time I ploughed on stoically, reinstated the 15 rows then continued and cast off the shoulders. And then I had four pieces waiting to be joined.

After joining the shoulder seams I started on the neckband using my beloved circular needles. I can't stand straight needles as they always seem to be poking me, and I've used circulars almost exclusively since discovering them (except when knitting narrow pieces, for which I often use double-pointed needles). Then it was just a matter of going round and round in 2 x 2 rib until I felt it was long enough. This was a nice no-brainer for in front of the telly.

I decided to join the sleeve seams and side seams in one go, as I used to do when I made shirts. It's so much easier – no wrestling with tubes of fabric, just flat pieces.

 Tying the two pieces together at intervals like this makes it easier to wrangle the whole thing and to make periodic micro-adjustments when you find one side is slightly longer than the other.

One sleeve joined flat to the shoulder.

I used mattress stitch to sew the whole lot up as it gives an almost invisible seam. Also, as it's worked from the right side, it lets you easily check how the right side is looking as you go, making it easier to match patterns or decreases, as here.

Matching the decreases on the sleeve seam.

Mattress stitch is one of those wondrous little techniques (like making your own bias binding, learning a provisional cast-on in knitting, or doing tailor's tacks, something that I tried for the first time only last weekend) that seems like too much bother until you try it. However, it's easy to learn and, once mastered, makes you feel one step further towards craft goddesshood. Give it a go, any knitters among you who until now have been wedded to backstitch. (Although in its defence, backstitch gives you nice strong shoulder seams.)

For the neatness freaks – almost invisible seams!

 And this – looking decidedly pink, which it isn't – is the result:

A warm, cosy jumper, all finished and ready to give to charity – just in time for summer.