Tuesday, October 7, 2003

Sanquhar Gloves





Here is the first Sanquhar glove after I cut it to make the hand shorter. It is done on size 00 dpns in J&S laceweight yarn following the Japanese pattern online HERE. I didn't want to do all that corrugated ribbing so I did the cuff pattern from the old Cast On Sanquhar glove pattern. Essentially it is one row of purling in black then a simple design. The Japanese pattern uses the little salt and pepper triangular gussets at the base of three of the fingers (omitting the pinky and the thumb). As you can see as you look at the tip of the middle finger, you can extend the salt and pepper fingertip pattern to make each finger the right length.

The whole time I was knitting the fingers I had the sense that the hand was too long. Remember my top ten list from September of things I wished I learned earlier about knitting?
Here it is again - note number eight on the list! Apparently I haven't learned it yet after all.

"10 THINGS I WISH I LEARNED EARLIER ABOUT KNITTING

8. If you get the impression while you're knitting something that is is going to be too short, too big, too tight, bad color combo, etc., rip it out immediately rather than wait. Trust your instincts - they're almost always right."

I knew the hand was too long but for some reason I kept knitting the fingers. In my defense, the Japanese pattern has you start at the index finger and every glove pattern I've used has you start knitting at the pinky. I think I would have figured out they were too long sooner if I'd started at the pinky.

I've been changing the heading of the blog weekly to show small photos of my previous work - the newest photos are Landra's gloves from Folk Knitting in Estonia and my argyle sock (pattern from the little VK sock book).

Here's a photo of the Dale baby cardigan in progress. I tried a different idea for the buttonband steek and just cut and knotted the yarn at each end since there would be facing covering this area and I wanted this sweater to be absolutely bulletproof. This would have worked out better if the yarn wasn't so slippery. I still like the Norwegian Sport wool (available from Elann) and would even buy more but it wasn't the right yarn for this particular project. I'll probably find a teddy bear who can wear the cardigan and send that off instead. Oh well - it was still very fun to knit.