A Yarn Tale

This is a tale of two happy halves. My Auntie was knitting a pair of gloves a while back however she stopped because the needle gauge was so small that it was making her hands ache. The gloves were from my favourite knitting book - Knitting from the North by Hilary Grant - my aunt has a copy too.

She said she had stalled on the gloves. Quickly I chirped in with some sympathy for her aching hands and the suggestion that she pop the whole project in a gift bag and give it me for my birthday in January!

 With a handmade card and a little poem to spur me on, she did just that.

I found the pattern in my book which I had previously admired, but never had the right yarn for, and set about knitting the second glove. Shirley had done the rib so it wasn't long before I whizzed up through the colour work. I followed her graph paper pattern which was different to the one in the book. She had interpreted the book chart differently but it didn't matter - so long as they were both the same. 

Trying to knit slightly tighter than normal knowing that my tension is quite loose, is actually very hard. This is particularly difficult on stranded work because you also have a tension associated with your floats at the back of the work. Ironically, by trying to be tighter, it was actually a little too tight in the end but they are wearable.

I have never knitted fingers before. They are fiddly on such small needles so I can see why she was struggling with finger pain. 

I had a 50/50 error on the mitt flap. My mitt has the wrong side showing when it is in the Mitt position but really the wrong side would be showing one way or another so I was happy to carry on.

I really wanted these gloves for dog walking. Mitts to keep my fingers warm and then my fingers free to tie a poo bag! To eliminate any ghastly brown accidents I added a button to keep the flap out of the way with a little hand worked loop. Stylistically is is probably not the best match of button, but I loved these ceramic buttons and they reminded me of the cardigan I knit for Heidi when she was little. I plundered them from the garment when it was too small for her and had saved them in my button jar ever since.

So there you are...

...a quite complex pair of gloves which I love. Shirley said I can keep the rest of the yarn so maybe I can make another pair or a matching something for myself - I feel an all done post coming on.

Jo xxx