today i turned 34. four years ago, when i turned 30, i had just finished knitting myself a cuff-to-cuff batwing sweater. which i loved then, and love now. but the fact was, the sleeves were a tiny bit short. always were. and it always bugged me.
in part, i think it's the whole batwing construction that makes you need a little more sleeve than you think. because none of it clings to your arm. it rides up. and so, i had this sweater that i loved, and that i wore often, but always had to wear something underneath of (like i did last year), so i didn't feel like i had crazy, overgrown, lycanthropic arms.
last week, i decided to finally take the situation in hand.
the original sweater was made in a mission falls superwash, but i had fantastic success substituting "bazic" wool by, i think, cascade. virtually unnoticable. and, as you may now see (there weren't many picture taking opportunities today), i have brand new cuffs on my beloved old sweater!
what a nice birthday, by the way. i didn't do anything out of the ordinary, but i had a very nice time not doing anything out of the ordinary, and i realize, that's because i like my life. a lot. even on mondays. i also ended up with a lot of gift certificate cash for rosie's yarn cellar . and a gift cert to amazon.com from my sister. actually, ben is the only person who dared to choose a gift for me. (he got me a selection of handmade, acid-free, japanese printing papers, to use with the press.)
tonight we went out for oysters, and, ben is in the kitchen right now, making my birthday "cake". i have requested the lemon filling out of a lemon meringue pie. not the meringue, and not the crust, just the yellow part, hot, and in a bowl.
i think it's things like that that make my family prefer to get me gift certificates. when anybody asks "what would you like?" it's always an answer like the lemon filling one. i sound like yoko ono. nobody wants to bother with me.
anyway, like the sweater, a little older, a lot more comfortable.