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Make Time for Glove

Too busy with busy-work to finish Laura's Sanquhar-style glove, although she did drop by for a fitting. The free pattern from The ABCs of Knitting website is a good one! I will surely finish them over the weekend; I'm too eager to start the next pair to let these linger as a project.

All You Need is Glove

I have a copy of Dalegarn Nr 130, which has such a dopey-looking knitted thing on the cover that I hadn't opened it. Would a real kid wear this hat?

So, Thursday evening, I finally looked inside, and whaddayaknow? There are a half-dozen glove and mitten patterns inside! You can see thumbnails of all the designs at this website.

I can't remember where I got my copy of Dale Nr 130, so I was searching around on the Dale of Norway site for a clue. You can imagine my surprise when I found this:

Dale of Norway Pirates??? Pirates??? I stopped looking for a vendor for Nr 130 and immediately began searching for a vendor for Nr 133, Kaptein Sabeltann - Strikkeoppskrifter for barn. Everyone needs a pirate sweater. If you'd like to look at the designs in this edition, go here, select the Dalegarn link, and then (very important) select Norwegian for your language choice. Then, from the right-hand column, select the news item that reads 21.10.2003 Skip o' hoi! Nye flotte design med Kaptein Sabeltann og sjørøverskuten. From the Kollections page, select the thumbnail photo of Nr 133, and you'll be rewarded with a PDF to enjoy. Skip o' hoi indeed!

Pups

The pups have had a grueling week of romping in the sunshine, rolling in leaves, chasing the neighbors' dogs along the fenceline, eating puppy treats, and taking naps. I join them in wishing you a wonderful Friday and a restful and relaxing weekend.

Little Jack says it's Friday! Come and Get Your Glove!

And Now For Something Completely Tiny

I ordered a little kit and an extra set of needles from Carol's Sockery last week, after seeing mention of it on Nanette's blog. Tiny little needles (4-inch long 0000s) and tiny little sock earrings. It arrived Monday, and I wasn't planning on knitting the sock earrings anytime soon, because I want to finish Laura's gloves. Ah. Best-laid knitting plans, and all that. While working on the fingers to the Sanquhar-style gloves, I found my attention kept wandering to the sock-earrings kit. What could it be like to knit an inch long sock, complete with turned heel and gussets? And, I needed to send something cheerful for the upcoming holiday season to the pups' grandmother in California—what could be more festive than little Christmas Stocking earrings? I ask you! Could you resist?

A closer look:

Cute! My variation on the kit includes a purled cuff, and a slightly longer leg. (It's a Christmas stocking, after all.) I used some Socka scraps and my new shorty-needles. Very inexpensive fun for a knitterly evening!

Glove is All Around

Hey! More cool stuff! Look what I won on e-bay!

It's a vintage Patons booklet that is all about gloves. Only 15 cents at the time of publication, which the seller thought was sometime during the 40s. I'm happy whatever the year of publication is, because I'm still riding down the Freeway of Glove. This booklet, according to the seller's blurb, includes "Plain gloves, Half diamond gloves, Ripple stripe gloves, Gloves with frilled cuffs, Fair Isle gloves, Angora gloves, Plaid gloves, Opaleen gloves, Mitts in fair isle and more."

Am I lucky or what? (What on earth can Opaleen gloves be?)

Pups

Thursday! Thursday! Thursday! Mike and Della say keep your eye on the Friday-prize.

Have a wonderful day!

Glove Can Make You Happy

I returned to Sister's Sanquar-style gloves with the skulls on the palms, and hope to finish them Wednesday night. After knitting the Ruby River concept-gloves with US3s, it feels quite slow to return to those pointy 0000s. Thanks to a pointer from Nanette, I have some new 4-inch long 0000 dps, and I'll be using them gleefully on the fingers. The circulars are okay, better for me than five 8-inch long 0000s, but still! Knitting on 0000s is a pokey experience.

Speaking of glove, I have a huge crush on the Herringbone Gloves found at Saku's homepage. Saku emailed me the url to the pattern for these gloves, and like the Sanquhar Glove Pattern, this one is also from the wonderful ABCs of Knitting website. It's in Japanese, but the charts are very clear. I think I can cast on 64 stitches, follow the charts, and hope for the best.

Browsing Saku's site, I found mention of two Fair Isle books that I'm not familiar with: This one

and this one.

Any blog readers familiar with these books? Are they available in English? Are they books of charts? Charts in a Japanese-language book wouldn't bother me at all. I'm thinking of ordering them today, but would like some feedback if you have some to offer.

Pups

Tuesday was a wildly windy day, and the pups did plenty of breezy frolicking. I thought Little Jack might take off and fly away with those ears, so I kept a close eye on him.

Della says HoHum! It's Wednesday! Have a nice quiet one, and glove the one you're with! ("Glove the one you're with" is a reader contribution to these glove entries--this one is courtesy of Mary--thanks!)

Have I Told You Lately

Rainy weather here! I had comfy knitting weather and so I finished my Mountain Colors gloves:

I like the Mountain Colors Weavers Wool Quarters; I like it so much that I ordered some more from Rob and Matt and it arrived today. You can see it glowing next to my Ruby River-colored gloves.

That's Winter Sky and Yellowstone, and with them I'll be making some more gloves from Homespun, Handknit.

Glove construction makes sense to me now, and I've been very excited to feel like a beginner again with a knitting project. Fingers and thumb gussets are more thrilling than turning the first heel on your first sock! So I'm ready to finish Laura's Sanquhar-style Skull Gloves, and I've also worked up the cuff in an Estonian glove from Folk Knitting in Estonia. What a great book; I can't say enough nice things about it. A wealth of techniques, a nice little scholarly section, and gloves, mittens, and socks galore. Gloves! Love to glove you baby.

Pups

Jack and Della say It's Tuesday—Strike A Pose!

Can You Feel the Glove Tonight

I almost have a finished pair of gloves! My first! I'm using Rita Buchanan's excellent directions in Homespun, Handknit for Good Basic Gloves.

These have been a reality check for me in glove construction; it's actually easier for me to see how the knitting works at a larger scale--54 stitches, to be exact. These are worked on US3s in Mountain Colors Weavers Wool Quarters, color Ruby River. The wool is a sport weight, and so the fabric is pretty sturdy at roughly 7 st per in. Laura's Sanquar-style gloves are worked on 88 stitches, and that seems very fine to me, but I read in Folk Knitting in Estonia that many Estonian gloves are knitted much finer, up to 140 stitches per glove! My Ruby River gloves would seem quite crude to Estonian knitters, but I like them just the same. Buchanan's pattern is very good, and following it does create just what she says: A Good Basic Glove. They are going to be a pretty pair, even while being quite plain and serviceable, and I am tickled practically pink to be able to knit gloves that fit!

Curiosity Dept.

Have you ever knitted with angora? It's luxurious, and it's on sale right now at Yarn Forward. But where does it come from, really? Check this link for 2003 prize winning English Angoras.

Pups

The pups had a lovely weekend, because my excellent nephew took them for a walk. His legs are not as long as mine, but he walks twice as fast, so the pups had a good time keeping up with him.

Always nice to have a change! Except on Mondays; we hope your Monday sticks to a comfortable status quo.