Stay Warm

Late one night, I had this idea.  I love using my LK150, but it doesn't have a ribber and converting ribbing gets tedious.  I wanted to make some fingerless gloves.  I want to make a lot of fingerless gloves...gifts, to sell, to donate, to have at school for the kids I supervise who come with those cheap stretchy gloves.  But if I just make a stockinette tube, it will curl at the top and bottom.

I've posted the tutorial at http://www.tracykm.blogspot.ca/2015/12/4-way-fingerless-gloves-tutorial.html and it's also on Ravelry now!  If you try it, please post your project on Ravlery!


If I made a tube though, and turned half of it to the inside, and grafted the cast on and cast offs together, then they wouldn't curl and wouldn't need ribbing, would be really warm, and could be reversible!!  I love reversible things!

It took a while before I could put this idea into action.  One night, I just had to start.  I did a swatch and let it rest.  Did the math the next day, and knit the first tube.  I planned to use tighter tension at the wrist and top..slightly longer at the wrist.

Well....of course, it wasn't a tube, LOL.  It was a long rectangle.  I put markers where I wanted the thumb gussets to be, and convert the turning row to garter stitch.  Did the second one.  Sat down to sew them up.

Which to do first?  Sew the side, or graft the bottom?  I started off by grafting the bottom, so my rectangle was folded cast off to cast on, purl sides together.  No problem grafting that.

Then I realized, I wouldn't be able to put it on the machine to knit the thumb gussets!

So, I tried sewing the second one with the side seam first.  No, I wouldn't be able to put that back on the machine for the gusset either.  Well, I might have, I"m not sure, but I didn't pursue it because I was not unstitching the first one, so these ones would be thumbless.  Then I realized I really needed to stitch the sides together around the thumb opening.

I had Rob try them on.  He felt that with the longer snug section at the wrist, that they were too long over the fingers.  He flipped them around and because the thumb opening was not centered, now the portion over the fingers was shorter.  He liked them that way.  I realized that now they could be worn FOUR different ways!

I also had to make a pair for women, as part of a gift exchange game.  I had intended to use similar yarn as the green pair (I think they are Zara (the charcoal) and Georga ) but I really wanted to do a reflective yarn.  Which is much thicker.  I pulled out this Moda Dea "Washable Wool" which is also thick.

Immediately, trying to swatch the Reflective on the LK150, I knew it wasn't going to work.  So, I dug out the SK155 which was on the backside of the table and they swapped places.  I still had to get the tension up to T8 for it to feel smooth.  The reflective strand in this yarn has NO stretch, so it's not really well suited for the knitting machine.  I left the swatch over night.

I did the numbers.  There was definitely a gauge difference between the yarns.  I wanted an eyelet turning row this time, but if I  started with  the Reflective, then I would need to increase after the eyelets when I switch to the beige.  No problem.

I got the first one done.  Ho hum.  Beige.  Yawn.  I knew I had to spice it up.  I tried a Fair Isle punch card with the second one, but between trying to figure out which row to put the dark brown, and a child talking to me, and figuring which row I was on for changing the tension...I messed it up.  It did show me though that I was on the right track.  I ripped back both of them and simplified the Fair Isle, which just happened to fit exactly in the 11 row section now.  I also realized that because I had increased stitches for the beige, I would need to decrease back down to the original number in the purple half, so I wouldn't have to do the decreases while grafting.  I was really proud of myself for figuring that one out before I was actually trying to do the  grafting!

This time, I decided to do the thumb gussets right away, before seaming.  A few false starts since I haven't done this in a while.  However, once I had the first one sewn up, I realized that the two layers of worsted yarn were just too thick around the thumb, especially with having a seam on each thumb.  I ripped all the thumbs out!  Again, being thumbless, they can now be worn four ways!

 It's so hard to capture the reflective nature of this yarn!  Will this catch your eye at the edge of the road at night?  I see too many people out in the dark, wearing dark clothes!

I have been a little envious when I see other knitters selling items with a nice wrapper.  My computer skills are not all that great (and my computer is very outdated now), but I really wanted to give it a try.  It went surprisingly well, and my daughter had a couple tips too.  Printed "landscape" mode, these fit perfectly around the gloves.  I did forget however to include the yarn content.

You might not be able to see it, so click for a larger version.

My cousin opened this during the game and commented that he didn't know I had my own business selling things--he saw how nice they were wrapped and thought they were store bought!  Awesome!  Mission accomplished!  He said they will be very handy but might get caulking on them.  I said that's fine!  I want my knit items to be used and appreciated, not put on display.  I can always make more!

Green/charcoal ones are 114gr and the beige/purple ones are 133gr

Yarn In: 5654gr

Yarn Out: 247gr + 7025gr = 7272gr
Balance:  1618gr more used UP than brought in
Costs:  $267.84 /348 days = $0.77/day