I'm thinking about the sleeves on the Airy Cardigan.

As pictured, they are 3/4 length - come to the middle of the elbow on the model.

I'm not nuts about 3/4 length sleeves -for one thing, you can't wear a long-sleeved t shirt or turtleneck under them without looking like a 1980s fashion "don't," and for another, those 3/4 length sleeves...well, there's something a little bit too "little girl" about them for me.

So I'm trying to figure out how to make the sleeves longer without destroying the shaping. My initial, rejected, thought was "just knit a bunch more plain rows after finishing the shaping. No. FAIL. That would give an oddly-shaped sleeve.

Then I thought: Okay, figure out how long they WILL be, how long they NEED to be, what the row gauge is, and see if you can alter them by just doing more "plain" rows in between the increase rows.

I still, fundamentally, like that idea, because what it will do will stretch out the sleeve without making it a strange shape. The one problem I forsee is that most women's elbows are fatter than their wrists. (Well, women other than runway models, but runway models are like in the bottom 4th standard deviation of the female size curve to begin with). The cuff is described as being 10 1/2 inches around. I measured that against my wrist and it's pretty big.

So I guess I need to make the cuff smaller, add more increase rows to eventually bring the whole thing up to proper arm-size. And I need to adjust the "frill" that you knit first - and then pick up a mess of stitches perpendicular to the "frill."

So this is not just going to involve math (which isn't the issue), it's going to involve hypothesizing from my swatch what the ideal length and number of stitches-to-be-picked-up is - and I don't like using the scientific method to make sweaters, especially when it's so hard to rip back after disproving your hypothesis.

So after thinking about that last night (and no, I'm nowhere near to doing the sleeves yet) and also seeing the "do short row wraps" for the shoulder shaping, I put it aside again and worked more on the French Child's Sock.

I WILL conquer this problem but it will have to be at a time when my brain is less tired.