Thursday, November 11, 2010

Triumph

I am finally victorious over all of my gloves.

1:

Guardian Gloves

Guardian Gloves have an elaborate stranded colourwork pattern that is a bit fiddly to work—three colours at once, you know. The remaining two colours are added with duplicate stitch after the knitting is finished. These take a long time to knit, as gloves go, but I think you'll find them worthwhile as soon as you put them on. I was moved to cackle madly with glee. It's great to have brightly-coloured hands!

The pattern is available on ravelry for $5.50 CAD, and eventually will be available from Knit Picks, where you could get it together with its yarn. I used Palette in five colours: Jay, Safflower, Sweet Potato, Pimento, and Clover. Most of a skein of Jay, about half a skein of Sweet Potato, a third of a skein of Safflower, and only oddments of the last two.

2:

Lily

Lily is a more subdued glove for occasions where bright colours would be out of place, perhaps. I think they look like something out of the 1920s, long and lean. The cuffs are worked side-to-side in garter stitch, though, so there's a lot of stretch concealed in there—this is the glove analogue of the automatic calf shaping I was so excited about in the Solstice Stockings.

Any light fingering-weight yarn will work, I think, but I used laceweight held double to make a thinner fabric. Two skeins of Alpaca Cloud will do it, or around 800m/100g of something else. This pattern is also $5.50 CAD on ravelry and also is eventually bound for Knit Picks.




I've had a pretty sad week; my grandfather had a stroke and passed away a couple of days later, which was yesterday morning, and so I've been planning a visit home for the funeral. Too scatterbrained to knit anything complicated or thoughtful, too tired to sit upright and spin, too bleary-eyed to squint at a pattern.

So I started a pair of plain toe-up socks for the trip. I have two skeins of Louet sportweight superwash merino in a sort of blueish red, and am going to knit them until I run out of yarn (this is the "mindless" part of my scheme), which means probably knee socks or taller. Endless stockinette has near-magical soothing powers.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm so sorry to hear about your grandfather. My best wishes go to you and your family. ::hug:: (Random stranger hugs aren't creepy if they're in sympathy, right? Right.)

Rebecca said...

That's exactly right. Thanks, sweet internet stranger.

karen said...

I'm so sorry about your Grandfather Rebecca. all my sympathy and good thoughts to you and your family.

ps. your gloves? OMG AMAZING. I bow down to your knitterly awesome-ness.

Georgia said...

I'm sorry for your loss Rebecca- I was very close to all of my grandparents and I know how you're feeling right now.

On a brighter note, I just found your Lily gloves and they are going to be the most perfect gift for my sister in law, who seems to have walked straight out of a Jane Austen novel. They are wonderful and I can't wait to cast them on!

m1k1 said...

I am sorry for your loss. The time spent travelling for his funeral will be perfect for remembering all the things you loved about him.

But you are definitely the queen of gloves. Lily is going in my queue, only ahead of The Guardian, because I am intimidated by that much colour work and gloves all at the same time.

Alwen said...

I'm sorry to hear that. I lost my grandfather at the end of July.

But the gloves! Wow! They are both lovely in their very different ways.

Eileen said...

I seem to have the same comment as everyone else. I'm so sorry; hope you're doing ok. It's never easy to deal with this situation. Also: GLOVESS.