Thursday, February 19, 2009

Firebird Fingerless Gloves

These gloves went through many changes from when I bought the yarn to when I knit them, but I rather like how they came out. They were initially meant to have half fingers and say "firebird" across the knuckles, but that idea was tossed in favor of not knitting half fingers (they're annoying, and hard to get to fit correctly.)I used Knit Picks' Telemark in Flame Heather, with size 4 needles. I made the pattern up to some extent as I went along.

The cuff was done in a mistake rib pattern - I cast on with a 4x + 3 stitches on one side and 4x + 5 stitches on the other. I realize that this makes them slightly different sizes, but it was the best way I could think of to make the rib spin opposite directions. Where by "best" I mean "simplest while knitting." And the two stitches really doesn't make that much of a difference in sizing.

The idea was that the cuffs would serve as a nice tail to an embroidered firebird, but decided to leave them simpler. The increases for the thumb were borrowed from the Chevelier pattern mentioned earlier. A few rows of mistake ribbing were also added to the edge of the thumb, and to the top of the gloves to bring the pattern together.

And yes, that's me hiding behind the gloves in the picture.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Fetching

With some of the yarn left over from my star hat, I made "Fetching" gloves from knitty. These pictures are actually my second pair of the gloves- I made the first out of some of the blue yarn, and left them at home with my mom before I took pictures of them. I like stiff gloves (and I still like playing around with gauge) so these are made with Berocco Peruvia on size three needles. They were a bit stiff at first, but they're quite warm and as I have worn them they have gotten a lot softer. Because my stitches were a bit shorter than the pattern called for, I did increase the number of rows in the body of the hand- 21 instead of 18- but otherwise the pattern remains unchanged.