G-Love

For a long time, I've been obsessed with the idea of gloves. Not as obsessed as MadTV's Dot here, but keen nonetheless. They look awfully complicated -- like socks with toes, but with all the increasing and decreasing in different places. Recently, pattern and yarn plopped themselves in my lap and I got to work.

I'm using a pattern called Men's Heavy Gloves, a 1945 Beehive pattern reprinted in Retro Knits. It calls for DK weight yarn, but I recently fell into some chocolaty Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport (see previous post), and I thought it might work on bigger needles. So far, things are looking good. The body of the glove has a cool texture that appeals to me.

I did have some problems in the space after the thumb hole is done but before the fingers are started. The instructions read "P1, CO 4 sts, sl next 16..." And my poor feeble brain read CO to mean "Cast off." Of course, this made no sense in context, but I couldn't see that this meant "Cast on" for the longest time. I haven't made that many patterns that cast on in the middle of the work, and it just wouldn't compute. You should have seen the weirdness that resulted. I tried five or six times, not understanding how the mess I was making could become wearable. Finally, it clicked.

Unlike the nice quiet bamboo needles. It's been a long time since I've used dpns, and I'm enjoying it. Just wish I had some slightly shorter ones for the fingers. It's hard to juggle all that wood around 16 little stitches.