Glovember Wrap Up

Due to an oversight on my part, I had a chance to finish my Glovember gloves this week. You see, I forgot my Christmas knitting at a friend's on Monday. They returned it to me on Wednesday night, but they neglected to bring my pattern and notes (I choose to believe that they think I am so good I don't need patterns and notes--ha ha). I didn't get them back until Saturday so that was almost a week without that particular knitting, which left time to work on other neglected items.

The Glovemeber gloves seemed an easy choice: They didn't need much to be finished; I could use them immediately; I was impatient to show them to the friend that gave me the wool. Plus I pretty much do what I want and answer to no one as far as my knitting is concerned so if that's what I want, that's what I get.

In any case, they were finished very quickly once I applied myself to them again. And I did get to show them to my friend today and she recognized the wool immediately. She greeted them with the delighted question, "Oh, so it worked!!?" Yes, the wool "worked." Ha ha. I shouldn't tease her, especially in public like this, but apparently I can't help myself.

The wool is delightfully "squishy," especially in the rib pattern which makes them even thicker. Maybe "plush" is a better word than "squishy." But they're good, in any case.

I really liked the pattern. The leaf detail at the thumb is perfect.

Very clever designer to use the increases of the leaf to form the thumb gusset.

Project Stats
Started: 7 Nov '10
Finished: 16 Dec '10
Pattern: Green Thumb by Diana Foss (available here) $2.50
Materials: James C Brett Pure Merino (2 skeins) (gift)
The major change I made was to add fingers to the pattern originally designed as fingerless mittens/gloves (or "wristers"). I have developed a method to convert patterns and will post it sometime in the near future in its own post. It is very handy to be able to convert the many cute fingerless patterns as their usefulness is very limited, and I also like to have a hoard of warmer items.

A new method I tried on the fingers of these gloves was to decrease the stitches down to eight and then Kitchener them together. This is gives a "flatter" finish at the top compared to drawing the end through the final stitches. A basic finger shape isn't really a round cylinder; it's more like a flattened cylinder, so I thought I'd try it. (I'm pretty sure I read about it on the oft-cited TechKnitter's blog.) Her theory was that it would produce less bulk at the finger tips.

Can you see in the picture that the stitches "roll" over the top of the fingers from inside to outside? The fingertips fit fine with this method, but I'm not convinced it's much better than the regular method.

I've been wearing the gloves for a couple days and have really enjoyed them. The thickness makes them warm. I can't wait to finish a hat to match.