Progress - Sleeves

I have now finished the front and back portions and joined them at the top as instructed. Next comes the sleeve which I want to continue to do on straight needles rather than the circular ones suggested in the pattern.

The first thing is to pick up the required number of stitches around the armhole. As the armhole is a joined circle there is no way of doing it on straight needles and so I picked up the stitches on the circular needle.

From here I can do the rest of the sleeve on straight ones starting by casting the provisional stitches on the straight needle. 

Continue working the instructions from there. When I need to add a stitch from the armhole, at the end of every double row, I just knit it from the circular needle onto the straight needle.

The other problem I have is to shorten the sleeve. The sleeve on the last one I knitted was too long by about 20 stitches so I need to find some way of altering the pattern. I started by casting on 60 stitches instead of the 80 recommended by the pattern. Instead of increasing the rows by 5 stitches as suggested I increased the rows by only 4 stitches each time in order to make the required 15 rows to the wrist end of the needle.