Glove Fever

I have a pattern in the Deep Fall 2010 issue of Knitty, right over here. It's for a pair of gloves that resemble the Ringwood gloves that Nancy Bush based her Ringwood Half-Hose on, and that Richard Rutt describes in his monstrosity of a book. Instead of a ribbed cuff, though, there's a tidy seed-stitch cuff that buttons closed. The pattern is for worsted yarn on 4mm needles and it is basically the fastest thing to knit; I think they'd be great emergency last-minute presents.

Relatedly, you know you have picked a good romantic partner when you say something like "Hey, do you want to come outside into the alley with me and take a few dozen pictures of my hands"; and they reply, "Sure, let's go!"

The Thing of last week is currently on hiatus, its calculations finished and its yarn neatly wound, while I work through two new things that came in the mail on Friday. These are more pattern ideas for Knit Picks, both gloves worked at relatively small gauges, and I want to get them out the door as quick as I can, so that the patterns are ready for high glove season.

Thing One is gloves with wide lace cuffs, knitted sideways. The yarn is Alpaca Cloud worked double-stranded. I chose a lace yarn instead of a fingering-weight offering for a couple of reasons. First is that the fabric double-stranding lightweight yarn makes is different from the fabric that a single strand of a heavier yarn makes, even where the gauge is identical. The double-stranded one will be a little thinner and a little drapier, which I think is ideal for something intended to be soft and pretty. Since the yarn is alpaca, they'll be warm as anything in spite of their relative thinness.

This is the cuff so far:



Ugh, right? This was my swatch, in a different yarn of around the same weight as the double-stranded Alpaca Cloud:



I think it blocks out pretty nicely! The swatch yarn is something of a novelty: Winter's Tale from Taiga Yarns, previously known as Unusual #15. I knitted a Faux Russian Stole out of it a couple of years ago and it turned out to be too warm for even an Edmonton winter. It's 100% goat down plus many coarse and wiry guard hairs, some of which fall out during the knitting while the rest stay put. The down beneath is very soft and vaguely silky-feeling, with some subtle glossiness. I might turn the swatch into its own pair of gloves, because I have a feeling that they would be great for October weather.

(I'm not allowed to make doubles of things before I even finish the first sample, though!)

Thing Two is a pair of elaborate stranded colourwork gloves that are not for the faint-hearted. Most rounds require stranding three colours at once, some rounds require four. I'll add a fifth colour with duplicate stitches after the knitting is finished.

And let me tell you: stranding three colours is a pain. The knitting doesn't have much of a rhythm; I keep dropping a strand of yarn off the tip of my right index finger and having to fish around for it behind the work. When I try to knit while something is happening on TV or I'm listening to music that is distracting or unfamiliar, I lose my place.

But the results are enormously rewarding.



I hesitate to praise this snippet of knitting—it's destined to be unknit and reworked on needles a size smaller (2mm, not 2.25mm). The fabric is a strange combination of too stretchy because of the loose gauge, and rigid and unyielding because of the extra stranding going on behind the scenes. But I think adding a third colour to the mix after the corrugated ribbed cuff makes the work look elegant in a way that leaving it at two colours would not have been. And it's surprisingly thick, and will be a useful warm thing in a couple of months. (And I need to psych myself up for knitting it again.)

I'm trying to evoke this mosaic ceiling, which is in the lobby of a magnificent art deco office building in Detroit. My knitted rendition is substantially simplified (for example, it's missing the little green diamonds between the blue diamonds that divide the columns of yellow and orange!), but it's fun to look at, too. It had better be fun to look at because I'll be knitting it for a while!