I posted the other day about the lovely yellow sweater that seems determined to cut off my blood supply at the armpit and my plan to thwart its nefarious intent through the power of knitting and stabbing sewing.

This is a much worn and oft washed cotton sweater, so the trickiest bit was actually getting the stitches holding the panels together to come loose (a process you can watch over here if you’re so inclined, it’s a public post). On some garments, if you nick the thread in the right place, you can actually just pull and it will unravel stitch by stitch (at least in one direction). But on this one I had to sort of coax it along. But I got there in the end!

As predicted, the panels won’t unravel because the panels have finished edges rather than being put together on a serger (the sweater is from Banana Republic from either last year or the year before and has held up quite well after lots of wear, as do most of their clothes. I’m generally quite happy with the quality of it, which is why I’m bothering to fix it!).

The next step is to try it on with the seam open to see if I’ve opened it up far enough or if I want even more space. I suspect I might want more room on the bicep than on the body, so I may end up making a slightly elongated diamond shape and putting the longer side on the arm. Once I figure out how much room I want, I’ll finish making the gusset and sew it in.

More updates as events warrant!