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Hey, are you getting as sick of the UFOlympics as I am?

It was fun to begin with — it was great to get a couple of projects out of the way and all that — but I’m getting a definite feeling of stuck-in-a-rut now.  Maybe this is why the real Olympics only last a couple of weeks, instead of seven… ya think?

But after all, I have been in training for this event for years – and believe me, it took real dedication and sacrifice to prepare as thoroughly as I have – and I’d hate to see it all end too soon, in something other than a blaze of glory.  So I’m sticking with it, for now at least.

Item #4 on the UFO list is the Anny Blatt "Jonelle" tank:  shorten armholes by removing a few rows from the top.

And I have just two words for you:

COMPLETE.  SUCCESS.

OK, OK, in actuality of course I have a few way too many more words than that.  As they say, here’s The Rest of the Story:

Originally, I finished knitting "Jonelle" back around – uh — the last Summer Games, in 2004.

This was loooong before I figured out that I have way-short arms, and the way-short armholes to go with ‘em.  So this sleeveless top was knitted exactly as written, with no sizing adjustments.

That was probably just as well, because to shorten the armholes on this baby while knitting it would probably have been tricky enough to make me give up on it.  At the time, it was something of an intimidating knit – and even now, I’m not sure I’d want to muck around with the armholes.

These two pictures were taken by someone at the knit shop — I honestly don’t remember who (mea culpa, mea culpa and all that, but hey, it was back when I finished the thing 4 years ago).

And as you can see, the armhole dips a little too low here.  Maybe it doesn’t look that bad in this picture, but take my word for it:  the thing really wasn’t publicly wearable.  At least, not by me.

Which is not to say that I didn’t wear it publicly once in a while.  What — you expect me to pass on wearing this kind of bling for a silly little thing like a bra showing??

Here I have self-indulgently included one of my all-time favorite pics of me and my sweetie, at a business dinner to which I wore Jonelle — even though it sheds absolutely no light on how the armholes fit, or don’t fit.

(I also ended up speaking in front of his entire work group at said dinner, but that’s a story for a different blog.)

Back to the matter at hand:  how to fix the armholes?

Well, fortunately for me, the black band at the top of the garment is not shaped.  All the neck shaping takes place in the blue section, and the black band is just seed st.

I removed the one row of single crochet around the armholes, took out the shoulder seams, and ripped out the topmost black bands on front and back.

Then I reknit the top bands, but only to about 1/3 or so of the original width.

I also picked up and knit similar bands around the armholes, with a couple of decreases included, to fill in that area and pull it up a bit.

Here I have a nice before-and-after:  and I’m thinking I really like the new version better.  Notice that what I did with the bands around the armholes really does pull things up significantly — see the change in the way the hem hangs?

And the final, acid test of course, is to try it on –

whoo-hoo!  look at that armhole now!

I may have to make DH take me out for dinner tonight!