One of the most colorful (& cheerful) projects I’ve made to date, is a pair of gloves made by only one strand of yarn. The yarn that does the job of creating this beautiful rainbow effect is Sock Hop by Dancing Leaf Farm.
The pattern on the other hand, is of my own improvisation.
It all started with the lack of proper handmade full length gloves, and the constant bombardment of such gorgeous projects made by others. (as showcased on Ravelry). The general idea for these gloves had been roaming in my mind for a long time. I even bought this exact colorway with these gloves in mind.
While it’s true that what we dream of knitting, may be not quite what we end up doing, mental ‘schemes’ usually seem to work out.
In this case, I tried a very simple stockinette fabric, plus a few minor experiments. For the cuffs, I used a different pattern, twisted rib. When increasing for the thumb, I placed all of the increases in the inside of the palm. This of course requires that such increases are to be mirrored for the second glove. I really like the visual effect that is created and I am sure to use it again in the future.
The true experiment of the project though, has been the use of short rows. They helped separate the height of the base of some of the fingers. Okay, that doesn’t make much sense, right? Well basically, what I did was to knit more rows for the index, middle and ring fingers than for the pinky finger, before separating and picking up stitches in order to work on the body of the fingers.
It seemed a peculiar idea at first, and I have no idea if this is common place, but the notion was created while looking at my hands. I noticed that the base of the fingers is a curve, not a straight line. So, I thought, that trying to replicate that curve with short rows would make the gloves better fitting and more comfortable. And in the end I think it does. The principle is rather simple, but rather fiddly, if you try to replicate the method on the second glove and have no notes from the first one. xD (I am so guilty of this!)
The last thing I worked on for better fit, was the adjustment of the length and width of each finger. Length varies of course anyway, but this is not usually the case with width, as seen in many handmade and commercial examples. As already exercised in my pen tablet glove, I decreased a few stitches at the knuckles of each finger. The whole result of this process is a tight fitting pair of gloves. A bit too custom I might say, as they do not fit random hands (as experienced!). The only downside of this project is that these gloves are too warm for our winter. I hadn’t had the chance to wear them for extended periods of time.
Maybe I should go snow hiking or something, right?
