Knit Chat

I've crocheted many fingerless gloves over the years, but I no longer crochet. It's too hard on my thumbs. However, knitted fingerless gloves are even prettier, so I'm giving those a try. I finished this first pair, loosely copied from a pattern called "Elf Clobber." What a strange name!

I can't tell you what a royal pain they were. I pulled out and reknitted more than once. Plus, making the first one is fun and creative, and making the second is boring repetition, haha! It's finicky work, this kind of knitting.

I have a lovely book of knitting patterns and decided to incorporate one of its patterns into my next pair. 

I also wanted to get rid of the cumbersome seam that is necessary when a glove is knitted on straight needles -- basically a flat garment -- and then is sewn into a tube for a glove (or a sock, for that matter). How does one avoid the seam?

One knits a tube. A set of double-pointed needles works for this, but I've found them to be a pain in the neck, likely to slide out of my knitting and clatter to the floor, leaving me with 13 loose free stitches flailing in the air! I found this video by Suzanne showing how to knit "tubular" using two sets of circular needles:

She's a good teacher. I'd never made a gusset before, the triangular-shaped thumb portion that gives such a nice fit.

I chose a little picot border pattern for the bottom of the glove around the wrist:

I did two of these picot borders (one for each glove) first, on straight needles. I picked up 34 stitches from one of them, onto a pair of circular needles.

So ... with two size 8 circular needles and some pretty yarn, I set off on this knitting adventure! (Yikes!)

 Shiny, silky yarn.

 I don't have the skill yet to incorporate yarn overs or cables or anything fancier than knits and purls, using these circulars in such tight quarters.

 I used one of my toe rings as a stitch marker.

You see below that I finished the gusset. I'll put it onto some scrap yarn while I finish the hand.

This has taken hours and hours so far. There's no way that the sale of these gloves would ever pay me for the labor of making them -- and I haven't finished the first one yet! But I enjoy the challenge, and they'll be pretty (I hope). 

The thunder is rumbling and crackling outside, the leaves are turning over, the air is darkening. We haven't had rain in about four days, so I won't complain. A good day for knitting, I think!