And, As For Knitting...

There's been a fair bit of it this weekend. I took the Drops gloves with me to Sit & Stitch yesterday and last night I finished the index finger and thumb. Because it was already dark by the time I finished up, I wove in all the ends this morning.

The gloves fit well, they feel good and I love the colour (which is a little deeper than the picture shows)! Even John likes them and agrees that I'll be able to wear them with a good variety of things in my wardrobe. To review, the pattern is from Garnstudio.com, Drops pattern #86-5. The yarn is SandnesGarn Sisu, and the gloves were knit on 2.25 mm needles and took me exactly one week to knit. Can I recommend this pattern? Absolutely! Oh, and the only modification I made was to make the ribbed section of the cuff shorter than the pattern called for. That's it.

I enjoyed knitting those gloves so much that I've cast on for another pair of gloves. This pattern is a free one as well (don't you just love the variety of free patterns out there?). It's the Knotty Gloves by Julia Mueller, available as a free Ravelry download. I'm using another SandnesGarn yarn, this time it's the Alpakka Mini, a fingering weight 100% alpaca yarn. Once again, I'm using 2.25 mm needles.

This is where I am right now, almost up to the pinky. Again, it's knitting up quite quickly! The cable section was a lot of fun to do, if a little confusing. The only reason I say that is because this is the first, or maybe second, time I've knitted cables from a chart. Once I got the hang of it, it really wasn't difficult at all, quite logical.

The yarn is what you would expect from alpaca, so soft and light and really nice to work with. I'm making some modifications to the pattern; as written, all the fingers are at the same level as the pinky. All the gloves I've knit have the pinky knit first, then the remaining stitches are picked up and knit for about three rounds. If you look at your hand, you'll see why: the pinky starts lower than the other three fingers. So, that's how I'll knit these gloves. I'm following the pattern up to the pinky. From there, I'll follow Ann Budd's "Handy Book of Patterns", sort of.

If all goes as planned, by next weekend I could have two pairs of gloves to choose from. Incidentally, the Vanalinn glove? The one I pulled the needle out of? Well, I ended up frogging it; I just got too frustrated trying to pick up the stitches and tinking at the same time. It was only a couple of inches and it will knit up quickly once I pick it up again. And I certainly will. I really like that pattern.

Now, however, it's time to put the knitting down. John's been in cleaning mode today. Once he's had a shower in the nice, clean bathroom, we're going to have a game of Scrabble. May the best woman win! ;)