The Wool Merchant's Daughter

I seemed to be fixated on gloves lately. Perhaps it is because I always viewed them as something difficult to make because of the fingers. However, having graduated from wristwarmers to fingerless gloves, it now seems the simplest thing in the world to just knit the fingers a little longer and — voila — a glove!

And, although I had found a number of patterns to plan towards making, I couldn’t find one for what I envisioned. So, I had to make it up myself.

I have a buckskin jacket with fancy beading and wanted something to go with it. Also, I have an almost-completed Annie Oakley cardigan from the “Folk Styles” book. That piece has embroidery around the cuffs and uses I-cord edging. The embroidery and I-cord are in Rowan Wool Cotton. I didn’t use the color scheme suggested in the pattern, but picked out something I preferred. In doing so, I stumbled across the Rowan Wool Cotton in pumpkin and in chestnut.

The pumpkin color is similar to the buckskin jacket, so when I determined to make gloves to match both jacket and cardigan, this yarn was the choice. It turned out to be an excellent one, I think, and I am enjoying working with it. Our progess so far:

In truth, I am using a smaller needle size. The yarn is supposed to take a 5 needle and I’m using 3. However, I like a firmer, tighter surface and this is turning out to have just the fabric texture I like.

The gauntlet part is in moss stitch, followed by a section of K1, P1 ribbing, followed by plain stocking stitch:

The big question was on the gauntlet part. I wasn’t sure whether to face the opening toward the side or put it in the middle along the underside of my wrist. I finally settled on the middle:

I think I will call these the “Blank Canvas Western Gauntlets.” I will finish this off with the same embroidery as on the cardigan and trim it will the I-cord edging to match. It is tempting to want to embroider up the back of the hand, too. There really are a lot of ways to trim these. Hmmmm … may have to make a second pair!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 21st, 2011 at 11:37 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.