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Glove Interrupted

We stopped gloving today, because the mailperson brought our latest knitting thrill: the coveted Mary Maxim No. 472.

Yar, knitting-mateys! It's The Pirate!

We cannot begin to describe our joy at having this vintage patttern. The sleeves have skulls and crossbones, the fronts have pirate ships, and the back, well, the back is quite possibly the best and goofiest thing we've ever seen in knitting:

While the details may escape you in this photo, that's a pirate, complete with mustache, eyepatch, and standard-issue pirate hat. Yo HO! This is SO much better than the Oil Derrick Sweater, and you know we loved that!

Who wore these things? More people than you'd imagine, going by the well-used copies of these patterns I'm acquiring. Each of the ones I've received have margin notes and obvious signs of loving use. Terri, our favorite knitfiend, posted a darling photo of herself and her sister wearing handknits with motifs from 1968 (on her 26 Feb entry). I love it. I love it that her Gran knitted it for her. And I love that she's obviously pleased in the photo to have it on.

Pups

It's Friday! Mike Jack and Della say Run in Circles! Dance and Shout!

And because it's Friday, a gratuitous link! Happy day, and happy weekend!

I Don't Know How to Glove Him

I suppose it had to happen. I've found a glove in a photo that scares me. Does he glove you? (I *don't* wanna know.) From a vintage Beehive publication, the Ascot Gloves, with matching scarf:

Yikes! Is it just me, or does this guy look serial-scary? Dr. Caligari-goes-to-your-prom-scary? And P.S.!!! The gloves are mohair...ewww! Scary!

Easy Glover

Things are moving right along on Herringbone Glove No. 2 since I used the graphics program that does not allow its name to be used as a verb to flip the chart. Yep. Apparently knitting from left to right is not one of my many, many talents.

Just a few increases away from a completed thumb gusset. After that, it's all downhill! Or uphill, I guess, to the fingertips. I can't wait to wear these gloves. I'm going to start saving up now for my air conditioning bill, because I'm going to wear them in spite of the weather here.

This Ain't a Glove Song

But it looks like an interesting book coming down the knitting path.

And this, in fact, it has nothing at all to do with gloves. But it's very, erm, animated.

Pups

Thursday? Mikey says the grass is always greener on the other side of the dachshund. Happy knitting to you!

Speaking of Gloves

I'm just knitting along now on the second glove to the Herringbone Gloves. I love this design, and I'll admit at this point that I've been having a little trouble reversing the charts and such for the second glove. I kept confusing my knitting direction, and overcorrecting, visually or mentally (take your pick!). This afternoon I had the bright idea (probably already obvious to many of you) that I could import the problematic charts into a graphics program, then flip the images. Yeah Baby! This works because the chart mirrors; I've printed my flipped-out chart and have been cruising steadily along, right-to-left, ever since.

Still Bugging over BugKnits

I was e-corresponding with miniature knitter/artist Althea Merback about her awesome Peacock Gloves, and she kindly took the time to write back about her love of knitting gloves. She also sent this link. An entire gallery of 1:12 scale gloves, including several dime-sized Estonian gloves and mittens; how did I miss this before? Merback's miniatures are marvelous; take a look, you won't believe your eyes.

Pups

Little Jack notes: Dachshundness is better than beauty.

So? What's your Wednesday knitting look like?

Gloveless

Nothing I can say about knitting will please you so much as this pop/rock video featuring knitting as you've never seen knitting before.

Crank it up on Windows Media, RealOne, or Quicktime and watch the wool fly. Meet the band here but not the knitter. Thanks, Metafilter!

Pups

Tuesday. Little Jack says A Rolling Dachshund Gathers No Moss.

Woof it up! Happy Tuesday!

There is Glove

Time free to spend knitting this weekend allowed me to finish Glove One of the "Landra's Gloves" from Folk Knitting in Estonia. I like the fingertips on these gloves very much. I'll knit up the mate, and I think ultimately I'll make this pair again, using the called-for four colors instead of two. It's a beautiful design. However, you'll never find another glove like mine.

The cuff is nice in blues and white.

But I want some gloves like Nanette's now.

Dr. Strangeglove, or How I Learned to Tell Right from Left

I had time to work on the mate to the Herringbone Gloves pair, and worked nearly up to the little finger before realizing that I was knitting another left glove (just like the first one!). I forgot to reverse the chart. Silly me. Ripped and reconsidered what we can learn when we truly glove.

Isn't She Glovely?

Amber kindly sent this link to me over the weekend, and it's marvelous. Thanks, Amber! Bugknits is an extraordinary paean to all things miniature. The artist, Althea Merback, also knits what she calls "full-scale" knits. And guess what? Three of them are very beautiful pairs of gloves. I'm crazy for the one with the peacock. Do take a look about halfway down the page.

Pups

What, Monday? Already? Della says: Dachshunds speak louder than words.

Be all that you can be with your knitting today.

We're In This Glove Together

Thursday, Beth asked the following question about knitting the Herringbone gloves:

"Did you plug the color charts into a favorite basic glove pattern? Or did you just make a lot of educated guesses? ;-)"

I've actually had a couple of emails about this topic, so I'll try to clear this up today. I have written before that the charts are very clear and very specific (see the pattern and charts here for about the 10th time). However, other than seeing immediately that I had to cast on 64 stitches (by observing the schematic of the glove in the Japanese pattern) and understanding the herringbone pattern charts, I was a initially a bit lost.

Saku wrote to me about knitting these gloves after I knit the Sanquhar gloves from the ABCs of Knitting site. When I saw her completed pair, I knew I had to make a pair for myself. So in all honesty, I would say that the first and most important step in understanding a Japanese pattern is really, really, really wanting to reproduce the item in question.

I was lucky. As it happened, Minako and Noriko were both working on the same glove pattern about a week before I started. They not only posted photos in progress, but they also discussed gauge and working the thumb gusset. (Mari is also knitting these gloves, and you can see her beautiful first glove here. Scroll down to about midpage.)

For me, working these gloves visually from charts, with help from Minako, Saku, and Noriko's photos, was fairly easy. Being able to read the schematic to determine that the hand would be 64 st around, with 20 st used for the little finger, 24 st for the ring, index, and middle fingers, and 28 for the thumb, was enough information to start. Noriko had translated the gauge in one of her blog entries. The fact that the back is salt and pepper with black borders that run directly up to the fingers also helped; if I kept the vertical black lines on the palm straight, it was easy to read the knitting. I sincerely wanted my gloves to look like the gloves my Japanese Knitting-blogger pals were knitting, so I didn't want to just plug herringbone stitch patterns into a basic glove pattern.

A very good idea was offered by Caroline F. When she started her gloves, she ran the Japanese pattern through Altavista's Babelfish program. If I had thought of that solution first, I would have done the same. Instead, though, I studied Tata-Tatao's tutorials on Knitting A Japanese Pattern, and Reading Japanese Knitting Charts. The ABCs of Knitting includes a dictionary of Japanese knitting term translations, and I found that helpful too. I'm sure that sounds as if I did it the hard way, but I enjoyed the process, and process is really the most enjoyable part of knitting for me. Next time I would probably follow Caroline's lead, and babelfish-it! The success of reproducing this glove from a Japanese pattern has mightily encouraged me to believe I can knit the Japanese Fair Isles in my new books.

This is a rather long-winded answer, but I wanted to make sure it was understood that I didn't want to change the pattern. Imitation, in this case, is not only a sincere form of flattery but a beautiful glove. I highly recommend it (if the pattern appeals to you), because you'll learn a lot about elegant glove construction.

Wait. What was the question? Heh. Oh yeah! The answer: I followed the charts, and got by with a little help from my friends.

Landra's Gloves

These are coming along nicely. I didn't think I was going to like them; in fact, I thought that they would make my hands look like Minnie Mouse glove-hands. The design element on the fingertips ensures that no Disneyesque comparisons even come to mind. They're going to be very pretty.

Vannalin Gloves

Did you see Nanette's?? They are swoon-worthy.

Pups

We're so happy that it's Friday. This blog is about knitting and the pups, but I must mention that I had to have a couple of very scary MRIs this week, and Laura got me through them. I'm not trying to sound mysterious; I tell you only because I want you to know I have the Most Wonderful Sister in the Universe. All is well! (Laura and I were both sorry that we hadn't remembered our cameras so as to document the procedures for future blog entries.)

Just observe the look on Della's face:

We all have that same smile around here!

Happy Friday to you; happy, happy weekend.

Glove—Exciting and New.

Come aboard; we're expecting you...well, we are expecting you, but we don't have completed gloves to show you, so you'll just have to imagine the glove boat making a rendezvous soon (tomorrow, perhaps). I'm doing what I promised myself I wouldn't do, and that is having more than one pair of gloves on needles. Right now I have three pair, three! Two from Folk Knitting in Estonia, and the Herringbone Gloves that I haven't completed as a pair. I better jump ship and focus on one glove destination or I won't get to start the new pair I'm envisioning, or my new tibetan-influenced tam.

Pretty!

This Scottish knit designer has some very lovely designs. No patterns, but the knits are definitely worth a look if you have time today to be inspired.

Astounding!

This Scottish knit designer has an astonishing coat on her website. It is also worth a look, in fact, it's worth a second look if you have time today to be amazed.

Pups

Thursday Thursday Thursday! We wish you a happy one!

Motherwit Knit

My "Landra's Gloves" stitch count problem was very quickly solved with Elka, Nanette, and Mary's help. Thank you so much for your wise and sensible advice! My glove train is happily back on track. Thanks, too, to the bilingual knitters who let me know that I couldn't order directly from Nihon Vogue-sha. However! Mari, Kaori, and Cursing Katherine hipped me to several other sources, the most promising being Kinokuniya, because their English is 100,000 times better than my Japanese. I feel as though I should have remember Kinokuniya, because I have actually ordered from them before, with excellent results. Remember this Fair Isle Book?

I'm completely crazy about the family photo on the front cover, and there are some nice patterns in this book. You can also order it here if you'd like a copy.

Slammin Tams

The Tam-along over at ASOF is in full swing and there are some very pretty tams showing up in the photo folders at this Yahoo Group site. I was so inspired by the beauties this group is knitting that I ordered Mary Rowe's book, Knitted Tams (ISBN 0-934026-48-3), and it arrived today. The circular shape of the tam sends my imagination toward mandalas, and the idea of being able to wear a knitted representation of Om Mani Padme Hung on my head nearly sends me around the knitting-bend.

A Tibetan Buddhist Mandala:

A hand-knit designer tam from Blackberry Patch Farm's Tam Shop:

See what I mean? Am I right? Awesome!

Pups

It's Wednesday! Della says Things Are Definitely Looking Up.

Knit! Knit! Knit! and enjoy your day.

Calling Dr. Glove

That's right. I'm calling Dr. Glove. In "Landra's Gloves," after knitting the little finger, you're directed to place the eight front stitches and the eight palm stitches on the needles, plus the SIX new stitches. What six new stitches? Not the cast on six that you add at the base nearest the middle finger; but six new stitches. You can't pick them up from the little finger, because you are a quarter-inch above the base of the little finger. Well, you can, but it looks very peculiar. I've checked for errata at the IK site and also at the Knitting Pages. This isn't covered under the corrections at Marsha's site. Am I misreading this pattern? If you have Folk Knitting in Estonia, and can check page 90 for me under Ring Finger, perhaps you've got the cure I'm thinking of. Please give it up.

Nihon Vogue-sha Company

I've been admiring all the books on the Nihon Vogue-sha Company shopping site, especially here. While I already have this beautiful book, ordered with some trepidation but ultimate success through Amazon.jp, I didn't realize that you could order kits from the book from the Nihon Vogue-sha Company website. Take a look at some charming Fair Isle kits at fairly reasonable prices.

Looking around this website, I realized you have to register for some type of Nihon Vogue knitting club to be able to place orders. And I have orders I want to place! Go here, then select the knitting icon. Scroll down on the page that opens, and you'll be rewarded with the sight of a 21 Nihon Vogue knitting book covers, at least 12 or so of which I'd like to buy. I tried registering so I could order some of the Mitsuharu Hirose books, but stumbled on the response page. And, I can't tell from Altavista's babelfish translation whether the company will ship to the US. If you know the answer, or, if you know where some of these publications can be found in the US, please let me know. They look so much more interesting than the knitting magazines and books available to us in the US. Although I must say it's a golden era for knitting books in English, with so many available, and I'm most appreciative of everything (except maybe Celebrity Scarves). But I'd like to have some of these Japanese publications, now that I know Japanese knitting charts are lovely to knit from.

Pups

It's Tuesday. Della says a dachshund's work is never done.

We hope your work is done with plenty of time leftover for knitting.
Cheers! You're a knitter! You Rock!

Little Knitting

We spent the weekend working on a paper, and while we feel quite virtuous about having accomplished so much writing, we got very little knitting done. Today's entry is Knitting-Blog-Lite.

Landra's Glove

We only managed to knit the little finger.

But it's a cute little finger, so we'll take a closer look:

That's all. No more knitting.

Pups

It's Monday! Della says "Nothing dachshund, nothing gained."

See you tomorrow!

. . . BREAKING NEWS. . .

Hell freezes over!

Texans declare this paltry show of white stuff snow!

Up Next! Pigs Fly!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our Favorite Holiday

We're excited around here because not only is tomorrow Valentine's Day, it is also our boy's birthday! His 27th! Buddy and his best friend Jennifer are spending the day on a whale-watching expedition on the Pacific coast. If I were there with them, I'd be making Buddy's traditional birthday cake, The Tower of Chocolate*, traditionally served at breakfast, then traditionally regretted for another year. Meanwhile, Mikey's practicing looking adorable for Valentine's Day.

Bug Bonnet

Sister was over yesterday evening, and she graciously agreed to model the new tam, so you can see how really cute it is:

See? It's so cute you hardly notice the bugs.

Flash-Knitting

This knitting designer is Mitsuharu Hirose, and I LOVE his Flash-intro. I think you'll like it, too, so go take a look.

Pups

It's Friday! Little Jack and Della say Stop That Immediately.

*Tower of Chocolate Cake: Take your fave choco-cake recipe, and double or triple or quadruple it. Bake in as many round pans as you can find, but at least eight or nine. Let cool, then start filling and icing with fudge frosting. (It's not considered good form to split layers.) Stack as high as you have layers and put lots of candles on top. Ignite! then serve with black coffee before going to work on the Birthday, preferably around 6 a.m.

I Can't Give You Anything But Glove

Thank you for your comments on my bug bonnet. I enjoyed reading your thoughts on it as much as I enjoyed knitting those bugs. I agree with you that the type of bug is very much open to interpretation! The buggy tam actually looks very cute on, much cuter than I expected, so as soon as the sun shines again, we'll take a picture.

Landra's Gloves

Remember when I was working on the "Landra's Glove" design from Folk Knitting in Estonia last week? I didn't care much for the beginnings of the cuff in two colors. However, I decided to press on to get the full impact of how this colorful design would translate into more subdued hues. What do you think?

I'm leaning toward liking it very much. It's quite a change from the colors I usually knit; in fact, I don't think I have ever knit anything that is blue and white. The handpaint in this glove isn't really blue, by the way. It's a very lovely mix of purples and blues:

The Double-Start Cast On, using double strands of Koigu, looks very dainty peeking out from under those purl rows.

I like it.

Admiration

Have you been admiring Pamela's elegant needle organization schemes as much as I have? I feel like a big knitting slob when I look at her tidy collections. Please see her 10 and 11 February entries (note the sheep sweater), and give it up for Ghillea and Rob while you're there!

More Admiration

Noriko-san has finished her Herringbone gloves! They are beautiful, and she has also posted her specs from her Herringbone experience. Fabulous!

Pups

The pups are in a bit of a mood because it's still raining heavily here during their outdoor playtime. I'm beginning to be in a bit of a mood myself, because I have three rainy-day smelling pups here.

Little Jack says (snort).

Happy Thursday; we wish you a wonderful day!

Bug Bonnet

I finished my entry for the Tam-along being hosted at ASOF Lives. Mine's a bit floppy, and I think I won't be able to resist reknitting the top. My decreases swirl, and I think, in knitting hindsight, I'd prefer the wheel-type. Here it is, stretched temporarily on a dinner plate (the preferred tam blocking tool):

In person, there are no little white bits on it. I don't know what those are, but am sure they'll come out in the Euclan wash. Here it is on that glass head that we keep our hats on:

I may like it more once it is blocked. But I think I'll really like it with a top that is more flat. Here's the bug motif:

The bug is charted under "Novelty Patterns" in A Shetland Pattern Book (ISBN 0-900662-80-8), and since I bought the book, I've been looking for excuses to put bugs on knitted stuff.

Tams are interesting; I think I'll be making more. Next time, I will pay more attention to my gauge, and I will also double-check the decrease rate once I'm at the wheel portion. I began my tam by following the tam instructions in the "Small Things" chapter from Sweaters from Camp
(ISBN: 0-942-18-21-4, and what a great bunch of techniques are in this book!), then moved on by simply fitting my bug motifs into the increases after the corrugated ribbing band. I used a greenish-yellow Shetland wool for the bugs, and black Shetland wool for the background. By the way, if you visit the Tam-along page, you can see Katie Swanson's Kestral tam—it's lovely!

The best part? My tam is finished, and I can now return to gloves! Thanks, Sheila, for instigating.

Pups

It's Wednesday! Mikey says We'll be Swatching You.

Cheers!

Noted

Hiho, knitters. Did you know they still put dialation drops in your eyes when you get eye checkups? I didn't know that. But of course it's been several years since I had a vision check. And they numb your eyes with drops beforehand, too, which makes your eyelids feel as if they weigh four pounds each. Why don't I know these things? Why don't you tell me these things? Knitting from a chart was too hard Tuesday evening, so we have no knitting progress to show you. I just hope it was the drops, and not that hat from yesterday's entry.

But!! There is some knitting to admire! Mariko-san has finished her Herringbone Gloves, and they are beautiful. Go have a look at some fabulous herringbone knitting.

Magazines

I picked up the latest issue of IK. Since I can't think of anything nice to say, I'm not going to say anything at all. Nope. Not me. A new Rowan arrived, and there are several colorful sweaters that I like very much. You pays yer money and you takes yer choice.

Pups

It poured rain all day Monday. So this is what there is to see of the pups:

Happy happy Tuesday, and happy knitting.

Time Out for Tams

ASOF Lives, home of the Glorious Glove Project and the Whimsy-along, is studying tams this month. Tams have a lot to teach knitters, especially in the area of decreases. And, like gloves, they are perfect small projects in which to indulge your knitting imaginations. Sheila has already finished hers, and it's lovely, see it in her 8 February entry. If you visit the ASOF Lives home page at Yahoo Groups, you can see Vanessa's beautiful lace tam.

Tams are named after a character in a 1790 poem by Robert Burns. You can read a bit about the history of the tam here, at Electric Scotland, and if you scroll to the bottom of the page, you'll find a link to the poem, which (and it saddens me to admit this) I find incomprehensible.

I'm nearly finished with mine; it's my first tam, so I'm prolonging the moment when the decreases get fidgety. But I should be able to show it to you on Tuesday or Wednesday. Mine has green bugs on it.

Ow! My Eyes!

Regular readers of this blog know that I am wildly enthusiastic about all types of knitting, and that I have a special place in my heart for knitters who create unusual stuff. But this. Ow. Perhaps by tomorrow I will love it, but for now? Ow.

Pups

Mikey says It's Monday! Coming Through!!

Have a delightful day, and may all your skeins be barf-glob free.

Glove Shack

Wendy is right; I've turned into a Glove-Ho. I don't know how it happened, but there is suddenly more wool around here for gloves than there is for any other type of knitting. Gloves got a hold on me, and fingering-weight wool croons to me: Who's your daddy?

So. I finished the right Herringbone glove today, and I'm very pleased with it. I also continued up the cuff of the Landra glove to see what it would look like.

The palm side of the Herringbone glove is also glovely:

This is going to be one gorgeous pair of gloves, and I need to give the ABCs of Knitting my thanks for the pattern. Minako and Noriko's photos and notes were enormous help, and I extend my thanks to them, too. The second glove should be a snap!

Nanette (who is knitting gorgeous Poetry Mittens) asked if I was planning on knitting every glove in Folk Knitting in Estonia. The short answer: Yes! (The slightly longer answer: Yes! Yes! Yes! and the mittens, and the socks, too! I love that book!)

New Vintage Pattern

I am giddy over my new old Mary Maxim pattern that arrived today from Laurie. Apparently, it was designed with the rugged outdoorsy engineer type that we all adore in mind.

That's right! Oil Derricks! Everyone wants one of those!

Curiosity Corner

Did you see that thing floating about on various websites? No, not Janet's starburst thingie, but the thing where when you're sitting in your chair, and you lift your right foot and make circles with it in a clockwise direction, then draw the number 6 in the air with your right hand, and then your foot instantly and seemingly autonomously begins to turn counter-clockwise? Try it! It's a perfect Friday activity.

Pups

Jack and Della say It's Friday. Follow your nose, or follow your best pal's nose.

Have a wonderful day, and a wonderful weekend. The glove you save may be your own.

Careless Glove

I was careless with my Herringbone glove and left it at an appointment I had early in the day. By the time I realized it was missing, the office was closed. But! There was voicemail for me letting me know it was safe. Anyway, the result of my glove adventure was that I had no glove to knit Wednesday evening. What to do but cast on a new glove?

This is "Landra's Glove" from Folk Knitting in Estonia. Instead of knitting it in five solid colors of Koigu, I'm using a handpaint and a solid from Rob and Matt. This glove pattern by Nancy Bush was named for the Landra family, Taui and Maie. Yeah! Those Landras! The Koigu Wool Designs genius-artists. It's a beautiful design, and I'm not sure that doing it in two colors will do it justice as an homage to Landras. However, I'm going to give it a try. That's a wonderful thing about knitting gloves; they are small enough projects to easily lend themselves to knitter's-choice.

This glove includes the very interesting Kihnu vits braid:

I like it.

Morgan asked about the color numbers of the Koigu PPM in Wednesday's entry. The stippled yellow is P616, the turquoisey-green-purple is P139, and the black with vibrant pinks, yellows, blacks, and blue-greens is What? also P139? Apparently there was a label malfunction at the LYS.

Pups

Mike and Jack say it's Thursday! Knitter's choice!

Have a great day!

What's Up

What's up with your knitting? I only had time to add a single finger to my Herringbone glove Tuesday. Still, I suppose that one finger a day means a pair of gloves in two weeks. That's not so bad. Here's the limited progress:

Not very exciting at this point. Tomorrow I'll add the ring finger and aim for a Double-Start-Cast On for the mate. In the meantime, let's look at my new Koigu loot, all for gloves:

The solids (cream and black) are from those good guys Rob and Matt; the handpaints are from my lovely local yarn shop, Hill Country Weavers (where the Yentala and Cyndilou allegedly hang out on weekends).

Isn't Koigu pretty? Sometimes it's just as pretty in the skein as when it's knitted into gloves. Several of the gloves in Folk Knitting in Estonia specify Koigu. I'm ready!

Yum. Since we have very little knitting news, why don't we go admire Mary Cassatt's Old Woman Knitting? Or, if you prefer, we can go see what's new at the Art or Crap? website.

Pups

Della says It's Wednesday! What are you waiting for?

Happy day, and happy knitting.

Justify My Glove

Steady on with the fingers of the Herringbone Glove; I expect to have a beautiful new pair of gloves by the weekend. In answer to a question asked a couple of times: Why Yes! I *do* always knit gloves with two or more circular needles! In time, I may switch back to double points, but for now, I stay in the circle of glove. With the Herringbone Gloves, I'm knitting the hand on two size 2 Addi circular needles, and the fingers on two size 1 Addi circular needles .

Vintage Patterns

We've been talking about vintage patterns recently, both here and over at Nanette's. Nanette, in fact, has some patterns for men that are awesomely awful. Don't miss them in her Feb. 1 entry.

We've mentioned Laurie at Vintage Knits as a resource for old patterns, but did you know you can visit the American Red Cross Museum and download nine WWII wartime-knitting patterns? Cool. Get your knitting on.

Pups

Mikey's rushing around because it's Tuesday, and he's an empathic pup.

Enjoy your day, and happy knitting!

All in Glove is Fair

The Herringbone Glove progresses, but I've made some changes that I'd like to note here. Tata and Tatao have charted a beautiful glove, so I was reluctant to monkey with it, but it wouldn't have been big enough for me at the given gauge (40sts x 44rows = 10cm; thanks Noriko!). For my big hands, I changed needle size to create a better fit for me, and am knitting more at 32 st = 10cm. I haven't checked the row gauge, but it is a smaller number than in the original pattern. My changes have worked well for me, see?

Fits me like a — well, you know. But if you are using this pattern, be sure to check your hand measurements against the pattern gauge.

Another change I made was to use Nancy Bush's Double-Start Cast On (from Folk Knitting in Estonia) with doubled strands of Koigu, rather than knitting a couple of rounds as directed. I think it's a good change; quite decorative, although it's hard to see here:

A third change was to begin working from the index finger, rather than the ring fingers, as Minako and Noriko have done. This change was because I misread the pattern! Follow the charts and you can't go wrong.

Isn't the palm side glam, with its black boundaries and salt-and-pepper stitches?

Non-Glove Knitting

I've really been enjoying the links to Japanese knitters that I've been encountering. Here's a knitter who creates foodstuff—chocolates, fries, burgers, tarts, cream puffs, salads, ice cream, and more—all in astonishing detail, plus cute outfits for her pup. Amazing! and very creative.

Pups

We hope your weekend was swell. It was sad around here, because of Sister's sad news. We'll be missing hearing about Pepper's adventures.

Little Jack says It's Monday: Gimme All Your gLovin.

See you tomorrow!