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.

Well into Glovember

Anyone see Edward Scissorshands?

I finally got started on my gloves for "Glovember" on Sunday. (A whole week late!) Ok, ok, I know "Glovember" is not nearly as good as "Socktober" (not nearly as popular either, strangely enough) but I'm sticking with it.

I know I suggested three glove patterns in this post that I was considering, but it turns out they didn't work out for the wool I wanted to use. Two of them, for one thing, were written for fingering weight instead of DK. How did I not notice this? (Personally, I think the way they were entered in Ravelry is to blame.)

If so inspired, I'm sure I could convert them to DK weight, but the one I liked best was 4 Euros, a little much for a pattern that might not work.

So I did an extensive search through Ravelry's database and found the Green Thumb pattern by Diana Foss. I thought it was perfect for the green wool I had in mind. In the picture below you can see it has a leaf pattern which replaces a thumb gusset. Clever, isn't it!

I can't imagine why some think gloves are fiddly!

The pattern is written for fingerless gloves (or "wristers") but that's what I definitely did not want. So I am converting the pattern to full-fingered gloves.

They have been flying off the needles and I'm having a lot of fun working on them.

Parlour tricks with needles.

I made a whole slew of gloves my first year of college and gave them to everyone in my dorm. (I should explain that I lived in a dorm that was more like a townhouse; so we're talking 7 pair of gloves here, not 30.) I forgot how much I liked making them.

I considered making a right and left glove, but decided the pattern had enough flexibility to it that I could just make two identical "ambidextrous" gloves and not have to worry about keeping them straight. So far that seems to be working out fine.

I've been hitting these gloves pretty hard this week, and although my tunic has suffered somewhat, it is still moving along at a pretty good pace. The back is approximately 7 inches and I'm well into the plain stocking stitch. All the "comfort knitting" I could ever want!