Orange madness

What you see to the right here has been the bane of my existence for the past several weeks. Yes, they're just little sleeves. Little baby sweater sleeves. But they're sideways knit with a smaller gauge on the cuff, which means I have to use two different sized needles for every row. And since I thought I would be smart and do both sleeves at once, that means three needle changes with every complete pass. Ugh. I only have one inch to go on these before I can start decreasing them (with bind-offs) again, but it seems like forever. I was so sure I was going to finish them this weekend and finally be able to start assembling the whole sweater, but I just couldn't bring myself to knit more than a couple of rows on the sleeves. I don't know what's wrong with me. Perhaps part of it is that most of my knitting happens on the train to and from work, but this little octopus is a bit too ungainly at this point to survive in my bag or on the train.

If I can ever get it together to finish the sleeves, this is what they'll be attached to. On the left is the back of the sweater, and on the right is the front. One shoulder will have four buttons (not shown). I originally planned to get cute little yellow duck buttons, but they were either too small, too big, or had too many pointy bits to get caught on the sides of the buttonholes, so I ended up opting for simpler round, smooth-edged buttons. But they're still colorful! I sure hope that Taz's soon-to-be-born niece or nephew will like this and wear it a lot. If I have enough leftover yarn, maybe I'll make a little matching hat, too. We'll see how I'm holding up by the time I finish it all.

I promise that as soon as I can, I'll get up more pictures of my works-in-progress, as well as a link to my finished objects album. Meanwhile, if anyone has any motivational tips to get me to buckle down and finish these darn sleeves, I'm all ears.