Unusually Short Arms

Hey Flan,

I love the pictures of Portland. I'm trying to convince The Hubby to move across the river from Portland (WA having no property tax means we might actually be able to afford purchase something at some point in our lives. OR on the other hand has property tax, but no sales tax, so we'll be shopping there).

So I think I may have unusually short arms. I've been working on a sweater. Not The Rotting Pumpkin per se- this one is actually for me. And I am freaking out. There is a good, solid reason that I knit for others. You can GIVE IT AWAY when you are done. It doesn't matter if it fits THEM because THEY own it and it's out of YOUR house and mind forever.

Knitting something that is intended for ME means that I have to try and measure articles of clothing, as well as myself, and try and choose the closest approximation from the pattern. The pattern is Swedish. Apparently every single drop of my Finnish heritage (both of The Dad's parents were full blooded Finns thankyouverymuch) has either completely deserted me or everyone over in Sweden took all the long arm genes and left absolutely none for their neighbors.

I started making the size L. This seemed about right. However, about 2 inches in it was coming out really really big. I then remembered that a gigantor busom was included in my genetic package and that the chest measurements apply to everyone except myself. I ripped out and cast on in the smaller size.

The back came out pretty well. I then started on an arm. I figured that I would probably want to shorten them because I prefer 3/4 sleeves (yes, this is a completely new preference. Somehow working at the library means I detest anything covering the wrists- I can't explain it). So I knit a sleeve, shortening it by SIX cm.

I was pretty happy with this sleeve.

I knit one front. This is sort of a shrug/ sweater combo thing, so the fronts went quickly. However, upon finishing the sleeve it's looking disturbingly long.

I took a sweatshirt and compared arm lengths to the finished (shorter) sleeve. Yup, it's a full length sleeve. IF I flip the ribbing up it might be alright. However, this pattern has you cast on a bunch of sts for the ribbing, then decrease at the end of the ribbing so that the beginning of the stockinette has far fewer sts than the ribbing so it's really not that tight.

What to do??