Puff, Puff, Puffin' Away

I haven't been idle in the last few weeks, I promise.  No, not at all.  It's just that there hasn't been much worth showing off as it's been black, black, black stocking stitch all the way.

In fact, round and round, knit stitch after knit stitch, with the occasional increase.

At last though, I finished the body part of my Puffin sweater.

Then, the weekend before the one just gone, I cast on for the cuff of the first sleeve and did the first round or so of ribbing.

Then I decided it wasn't looking very neat, so I ripped it out and started again.  I had visions of this happening more than once as I really, really, dislike joining cast-on stitches to knit them in the round (that and the fact I also dislike Kitchener stitch/grafting is why I make my socks toe-up).  Second time lucky though, on this sleeve.

Last Monday I took it to knitting group and carried on knitting round and round, doing the increases every fourth round, as instructed.  I looked at it and thought it was getting wider quite quickly, but though (as you do) "oh, it'll be ok".  I carried on knitting and knitting and got up to round 80-something by Wednesday evening.  Hubby went to bed early-ish on Weds night as he had to be up and out to work early on Thursday morning.  I looked at the sleeve again and tried it on.  Oh.  Too wide, too soon.  A reality check ensued, then a deep breath and out came the needles and I ripped it right back to the end of the ribbing (I wasn't going to cast on again unless I absolutely had to).  I started the knit, knit, knitting again - this time increasing every fifth round - and ended up going to bed a bit later than I'd intended, but with about 20 rounds under my belt.  Thursday I plonked myself down on the sofa with a cup of tea and my Kindle propped up on its deckchair (an easy-read chick-lit novel on it) and spent the morning knit, knit, knitting.  By yesterday morning, I'd finished the increases and was just knitting round and round until it was the length I needed.  I checked with the knitting group ladies towards the end of our session and we agreed that it needed to be a little bit longer, but not much.  I haven't picked it up since (I've been making something else today), but I've only got another three or four rounds to go before I put the stitches on waste yarn (WooHoo!).

This means that I feel justified in thinking about the colours I'm going to use for the zig-zaggy, stripy yoke.  I bought ten colours:

I need five colours, plus black if I'm going to follow the pattern (which I am).  It's just a case of deciding which five colours and in which order.  These are my possibilities:

I'm drawn to the second to last one at the moment (any opinions will be gratefully received).  I might put them into a Word document and convert them to black & white to see how they look colour-value-wise (there was a good post on the Brooklyn Tweed blog a while back about doing that which was very interesting and instructive).

Right - off to drink tea and do a quick bit of tidying before DD2 gets home from school.  I think DD1 is late home tonight - I forgot to double-check with her that her after-school music activity is on today so must make sure I've got my phone close by in case she calls or texts.