I had a knitting scare yesterday. I was blocking the above glove in warm soapy water and the red color of Knitpicks' Palette started bleeding. With a white background this could have spelled disaster for the color pattern. I quickly grabbed the glove and immediately put it on a towel to block but I still think I can see a bit of bleeding on the white near the bottom of the glove.

It was so weird because I'd never had this happen with Palette before. I wonder if there are ever "rogue" skeins of yarn that bleed dye or are dyed differently?? This happened once before with Nature Spun sport weight and my Pablo Neruda socks. I'd used Nature Spun a zillion times but the purple color bled near the foot on one sock when I was washing them and ruined them. Here are the socks before that fateful moment.



I'm also not sure if this was a current skein of Palette or one from several years ago. I'm getting another batch of Palette soon and I'll do tests with it before I proceed. Anyway, the gloves above combine three of my favorite knitting things: 1) lots of colors, 2) knitted letters, and 3) those wonderful Norwegian charts of people holding hands. I plan to add some embroidery to them as well to add even more colors.

In my continuing efforts to collect all the purple colors of Wool of the Andes and Peruvian Highland wool, here is the offering from Elann (along with some gray for DH's socks).






I just realized that Easter is next Sunday! So it is again time for my usual public service message. Rabbits are delicate creatures, they can live a long time, require as much care as dogs and cats (I consider them higher-maintenance actually), spaying/neutering them is not inexpensive, etc., etc, etc. Please pass the word along so the shelters aren't filled with discarded children's pet Easter rabbits again this year. Chocolate Easter bunnies are definitely the way to go!

I met my friend Gracie in college. We both lived in International House at Illinois State University and we soon realized we shared many classes because we were both French majors. We've kept in touch over the years via email and I know she is an excellent and addicted quilter.

Anyway, yesterday a box arrived from Gracie. I'm having trouble photographing the incredible and bright colors but this quilt is by far the most incredible handmade gift I've ever received.

The little patch says the quilt pattern is Flamenco and the fabrics are Kaffe Fassett. I don't think she could have chosen better for my tastes - I love touching it and staring at the colors and the stitching. DH wants to hang it in our living room so I'll get a better photo once we do so.

I think these latest thick hiking socks for DH are really ugly but a) I wanted to use up all the Cormo I had so I had to do two-tone, b) they won't look two-tone when he wears his hiking boots and c) DH likes them. Boy doing 9" of K2P2 ribbing for each sock is certainly fun. Not.



Spring has sprung. This photo shows the buds on the lilac bush.



Blogging may be sporadic this week as we will have visitors. I will have to keep an eye on the brown large-eared one to make sure she doesn't use this excuse to beg for extra food.

Just in case you thought that was the only knitting I have clogging up the armoire, here's the growing pile of items to be given away next Christmas.



And here is the pile of items knit for booklets. I figure I should keep these although I have friends who are always trying to abscond with them. I have a vision of my next crafts room having a large corkboard so I can hang them up and enjoy the colors.



I'm amazed at how many of you save little bits of yarn. I already have quite a few tiny bits of yarn because of all the color knitting I do. I will have to come up with some new methods for storage because they always become tangled if I just toss them in a container or drawer.

I put a new post up on the Glove Knitting KAL on figuring out your hand size for knitting patterns. If any of you know your hand size for purchasing gloves will you check it out please? I'm trying to see if there are any others who have differences in their commercial glove size vs. knitting pattern hand size. Thanks!

Does anyone else have trouble throwing away knitting mistakes? Here is a pile of various items I've knit, mostly unfinished, that I gave up on because I hated the colors or just hated knitting period. DH didn't like the blue and white Selbu glove. I don't really know why I have to hold on to this stuff (in sewing I guess they call similarly unloved items "wadders") but I guess it is because they all represent a piece of my life in some sense. Anyway, now that I have a photo I'm free to toss them.

Doesn't Jack look like he is contemplating his fat cat belly? I adore him but he is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

I finally found a use for those bags you get when you order Victoria's Secret flannel PJs. I like to keep the colors for each knitting project separate and each of these bags holds the content of one glove project. One bag contains 10 skeins of yarn and one contains 20. (BTW, never pay full price for VS flannel PJs. The discontinued patterns go on sale for under $20 every few months.)




This is what I saw every time I looked down from the desk while working hard on the glove booklet.



Like any self-respecting rabbit, she begged for food shamelessly while I was preoccupied with the booklet. Plus DH & I are noticing she double teams us more frequently. I'll feed her and then she'll immediately go to DH and beg for something to eat. I'm definitely going to have to work harder to enforce the bunny diet.

I 'm currently unable to get a photo of the glove booklet cover into my sidebar. I actually had an artsy photo for the booklet cover of the glove on an Adirondack chair with the mountains in the background but Lulu said it was the wrong size. So instead I just stuffed everything in the scanner as I've done with the other booklets.



Oh no! My new gloves don't fit. No really these are just another pair of thick boring hiking socks for DH. He insists upon 9" of K2P2 ribbing for every pair which is torture. I'm knitting them simultaneously because I am going to run out of one of the shades of undyed Cormo yarn. The feet will be a lighter color.

The glove booklet is finished and for sale at my Lulu store. Catchy title, eh? It is 36 pages, all-color, with over 50 photos, diagrams and charts including a gallery of gloves that don't fit. The price is $18.38 for print or $8.75 for a .PDF file. You can also email me at nanetteblanchard (at) earthlink (dot) net if you would prefer to pay by check - Lulu takes both credit cards and Paypal.

I originally wanted to add more glove patterns but I had to work to keep the price down (all-color booklets are more expensive to print). I plan to add more glove patterns (including one with individual finger gussets) to the store individually at a later date.

HERE is the book's info page and HERE is the KAL page for either of the glove patterns from the booklet. Please let me know if you'd like to sign up for the KAL - one thing I thought we could do is get KAL members to upload photos of their hands so we could talk about modifications to make their hand-knit gloves fit better.

The world's largest caterpillar stopped by to say hello while I was photographing the second glove I'm doing for the booklet.


These gloves have a sore thumb gusset and tapered fingertips and the fingers are worked in the opposite direction as the gloves with the colorwork cuffs from a few days ago. This is a woman's medium and you'll need 2 (50 g) skeins of black in Knitpicks Palette and small amounts of white and 6 other contrast colors.



This is the men's medium version of the same glove knit in Elann's Devon sport weight wool which is nice and soft and stretchy but a bit finer than most sport weight yarns. To knit the men's glove you need one skein mineral green and two skein of Cape Cod blue. Unfortunately neither of these colors is currently available at Elann but there are some other fun Devon colors.



The colorwork cuff gloves with the peasant thumb require 2 (50 g) skeins of Knitpicks' Palette in the main color and small amounts of 9 other colors for the cuff for both the small and large woman's sizes.

For those who plan to knit these gloves on dpns (instructions will also be given for 2 circs), I highly recommend you buy some glove needles from 4" to 6" long. I am amazed at how much faster I can knit glove fingers when using shorter needles. There will be more sources in the booklet but Spin Blessing and Patternworks have the largest selections of glove needles in various materials. My glove needles of choice are the extremely inexpensive Inox/Prym dpns from Spin Blessing - not too slick and not too sticky and unbreakable so far. If you can, get glove needles in all sizes from 2.5mm to 3.5 mm as you'll find you need the variations. Many knitters use a different size dpn for the fingers because of tension differences in knitting small tubes.

I still want to knit another version of each glove but I hope to have the glove booklet for sale by this weekend.

I've posted a few of these before but here is the complete list of my favorite online glove patterns:

Cigar Gloves - This thick pair of men’s gloves knit with two circular needles has two open fingers for cigar smoking.

Floral Fair Isle Gloves - This attractive pair of gloves from Interweave Knits is knit with many colors of fingering weight Shetland wool.

Gansey Gloves - These incredibly beautiful gloves are perfect for knitters who love texture. Must. Make. These. Gloves.

Gloves in Karisma - A pretty Drops design using I think DK weight yarn for gloves with 2 cables and a seed stitch border.

Guatemalan Gloves Free Knitting Pattern - This gorgeous pair of 14 color gloves comes in five sizes depending on what weight yarn you use.

House Gloves - This simple pattern with striped fingers uses worsted weight yarn. The pattern includes instructions for using dpns, 2 circs, and the Magic Loop method to knit gloves.

I-Cord Gloves - This serial pattern from Nonaknits features I-cord fingers, top-down construction and Joyce William's fun technique for in between the fingers.

Ken Gloves - This Berroco pattern is sized for men and knit with a thick yarn.

Sanquhar Gloves - These traditional Scottish Gloves using lace weight yarn are considered the pinnacle of glove making. This incredible pattern is from a Japanese knitting web site and is error-free.

Sideways Gloves - If you can't decide whether to knit your gloves cuff-up or top-down, try making them sideways.

Starlight Evening Gloves - These long gloves use an eyelet pattern and a decorative seam.

Opera Glove - This pattern for elbow length pair of gloves has good photos on how to pick up stitches from a peasant thumb.

Wedding Day Lace Gloves - This beautiful lacy pair of long gloves is perfect for a bride.

Women's Lace Gloves - Nifty vintage pattern for gloves. I made these a long time ago (I have the vintage pattern booklet) and they turned out beautifully.

And if you prefer to design your own gloves:

Hand Knit Glove Pattern Generator - Simply plug in your hand measurements at this web site and you’ll get a pattern written for your size.

Lynn’s Gloves - This valuable web site is a template that shows you how to design your own knitted gloves similar to using Elizabeth Zimmermann's Percentage System for sweaters.

I probably shouldn't have used dark brown yarn for the photos of the Joyce Williams' glove technique from her book Latvian Dreams. Oh well. Above is a photo taken after the fingers are joined.

To begin you knit the fingers top-down on two circs. Leave the bottom stitches live on waste yarn and mark each finger so you don't get them mixed up.



Next you transfer the front half of the stitches of each finger to one circ and the back half of the stitches of each finger to the other circ. (This differs from the usual method of knitting top-down gloves where you would leave the stitches in between each finger on waste yarn and use kitchener stitch to join the fingers together later.) Make sure the fingers are in the right order as it is pretty easy to get them mixed up.

Now here comes the interesting part. You knit across all three fingers but when you get to the area where two fingers meet on the inner edge of each finger, you put one stitch on a coilless safety pin to be knit on the other side and continue knitting across. On the second half of the stitches (the other circ) you pick up and knit those stitches on the coilless safety pin and put more stitches on the coilless safety pins to be picked up on the other side. Essentially what you are doing is transferring stitches from the front of the glove to the back and vice versa where the fingers meet.

Initially I thought this would mean that the circumference around the base of the fingers would end up really tight but the fingers felt fine to me. It really is a clever way of omitting potential holes (from large or loose stitches) between the fingers for top-down glove knitters. Thanks to Jennifer from the comments for her enthusiastic recommendation of this method.

The two glove patterns are done and now I'm just re-knitting them to try to avoid any errors and to add some sizes. I'll have a photo of the second glove tomorrow or Tuesday. The technique section of the booklet is finished except for a final edit and my big project for this week is to try to get as many photos and scans as possible.

Peaches is still shedding fiercely and is also becoming quite the handful. Even spayed house rabbits go a little wild when spring arrives and her bunny energy has probably tripled. Her new favorite activity is pulling books out of the bookshelves to munch on.

Sorry I don't have the glove photos today. My excuse is that the second glove pattern for the booklet is driving me completely insane. I've knit the thumb gusset over and over in different patterns, I've done about 30 configurations for the division of the finger stitches, and it is not even a complex pattern. At least I'm in the final stretch of the booklet and I think I'm going to make DH take me out for a fancy Japanese dinner when I finish.

Today's Glove Hall of Shame features the very first pair of gloves I made for DH. I'm guessing these are at least 15 years old because I bought the wool fingering weight yarn from Kmart.

The glove appeared to fit when DH models it so I could not for the life of me figure out what the problem was for a very long time.



Looking closer at the glove you can see that the fingers are freakishly short although that wasn't the cause of the problem. The real problem was that I added about 1 1/2" more than necessary between the base of the thumb and the base of the little finger.




To fix this problem when you are making gloves for someone else, simply hold up the glove in progress to the drawing you've made of their hand. That way you can start the base of the fingers at exactly the right spot.



(BTW, try to measure the person's dominant hand for gloves because it is usually larger and more muscular.)

Maia had an excellent question in the comments. She wondered if you can put the pinkie stitches on waste yarn and knit the extra rows of the hand - i.e., doing it in reverse from the way I talked about. I never thought about it but yes, there is no reason you couldn't do it this way and it would be less fiddly and faster.

I think the sequence you do the fingers is a matter of personal preference. About half the glove patterns I see have you knitting the index finger first and the half instruct you to do the little finger first. All glove patterns I've seen instruct you to knit the thumb last. I usually knit the little finger and then the thumb so I have an anchor on each side of the glove to better measure the base of the other fingers. If you're doing a peasant thumb and you have no opening for the thumb stitches, you should knit the thumb before most of the other fingers just so you can try the glove on while knitting.

Jennifer has asked if I've tried Joyce William's unique glove construction method and I'll have photos of that method tomorrow.

This photo shows the glove fix I talked about when the base of the little finger is lower than the base of the other fingers. I've knitted several rows even after knitting the finger and I stop right when I get to the webbing between my ring and middle finger. Then the finger knitting resumes.



These gloves are actually the same size but the orange ones have extra length between the color pattern and thumb base. The orange ones are also still a bit damp from blocking. I think the rounded fingertip shaping shown here looks more anatomical than the tapered fingertips usually done on colorwork gloves.

I still have at least four more of these gloves (in more colors of Knitpicks' Palette) to knit before the pattern will be ready. I want to change the numbers slightly for the index and middle finger and I want to also knit them using two circular needles. This is the small size and I still need to do a larger size.

I've also started the second glove pattern using Elann's Devon yarn. Devon is labeled a sport weight but it is quite fine. I'm curious to see what it will look like knitted up on the suggested size 4 (US) needles. The second glove pattern will have a color pattern throughout the hand and fingers, a sore thumb gusset, and will have sizing up to a men's large.

Here's one of my favorite glove knitting tips. If you diagram the finger stitches, you can greatly speed up your knitting. Once you understand the fingertip shaping you no longer have to read through the long pattern each time you get to a new finger. Instead just consult your nifty diagram.


This is the diagram for the peasant gloves I'm working on. Each circle represents a finger (starting with the thumb slightly below on the left going all the way to the little finger on the far right) and the number inside the circle represents the total number of stitches used for each finger.

The numbers above and below the circles in blue are the stitches that you put on dpns after being held on waste yarn and the numbers in red are the stitches you either cast on or pick up from the previous finger to get your total stitch count.

I've been thinking ahead to future knitting once I finish the glove booklet. This week I made 3 purchases that I'm greatly anticipating. First, I purchased some of Anne's gorgeous handspun yarn at her new shop, Wooly Wonka Fibers. I bought the alpaca, wool, and silk yarn from her scarf knitting kit and I plan to use it for more hiking socks for DH.

Secondly I purchased Terri's new self-published book Selbuvotter on one of my favorite subjects - Nordic gloves and mittens. I just love the cover design of the book. If you pre-purchase the book in March you get free shipping.

Finally, I purchased some terrific colorwork sock patterns from Red Bird Knits. I chose the Andes, Winter Dreams, and Noel designs and I already own the Holly Berry design.

I think those projects should keep me out of trouble for a while. I also purchased more of Elann's Peruvian Highland Wool in my continuing efforts to get all the purple, blue, and green shades I can find.

There is a problem with the fit of these gloves. See if you can figure out how to fix this problem. (Answer at end of this post.)



I really hope to find a lot of different types of hands to try on the gloves for the booklet so I can use photos of gloves that don't fit. I think the best way to learn how to knit better-fitting gloves is to see what it looks like when they don't fit well.



Other than that I like the fit of these gloves for my particular hands. They're done in Knitpicks' Palette which may be the best yarn for gloves of all time.

I am currently planning on doing two main patterns - one pattern for some peasant thumb gloves with rounded fingertips as seen here and one pattern for some sore thumb gloves with tapered fingertips. I hope to do several sizes of each, possibly with some interchangeable pattern charts, to include gloves for men and women.

Answer - The gloves shown here have that little bunch under the little finger not because the little finger is too short but because the base of my little finger is 1/2" lower than the base of my index finger. (This anatomical difference isn't true for all hands but it is true for many of the hands I've seen.)

Most glove patterns I see don't account for this issue but the fix is to knit the little finger, then put all the hand stitches back on dpns (while picking up the cast on stitches for the little finger) and knit a few rows even, then go back to working the rest of the fingers. If you are often pulling the fingers on your hand knit gloves down so that the intersections between the fingers on the glove touch the webbing between your fingers, this is likely the problem.

Peaches has recently figured out how to open the bottom kitchen cabinets and she keeps pulling stuff out in her tireless search for something to eat. This morning I found her playing with the lid to my rice cooker. She doesn't care what mayhem she creates. Ever since she was voted Best Blog Pet she thinks she can do no wrong.




I have all my free knitting patterns from the blog posted in the sidebar but I've been meaning to post links to some of my other older knitting patterns. Not all have photos (other knitters provided the photos) but most of them are pretty simple and fast.

Bobble Washcloth (photo)
Garter Stitch Lace Facecloth (photo)
Raised Triangles Washcloth (photo)
Tiny Cables Washcloth (photo)
Zigzag Lace Facecloth (photo)
Garter Stitch Eyelet Facecloth (photo)
Super Fast and Easy Spiral Rib Socks
Balaclava

Speaking of balaclava patterns - go check out Desiknitter's cool free balaclava pattern.