Manhandled!

Welcome friends to the Salt Spring Strings (and things) blog!!!

I've been looking forward, for some time now, to having an venue where I can share my thoughts on knitting and some of my latest patterns.  Now what's so great about this (in my simple mind) is that I can also muse on food (my first love) and living as close to self-sufficience as I possibly can (I'll even share my fabulous soap recipe with you....some day ;0)




So to kick things off.... I wanted to share this pattern with you.  The pattern, called Man Handled (PDF), is for some kick-butt fingerless gloves that are GREAT for new knitters!  

Enjoy!

Finished size:  Fits a man-sized hand! 

Yarn: Approx. 200 yards of aran weight yarn.  For this pair I used 2 balls of Galway

        (by Diamond Yarns) that I held together yielding 2 pairs of gloves and a little stash         action.

Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) double pointed needles

Notions: 

·      2 stitch markers

·      1 tapestry needle for weaving in ends

Gauge:  4 stitches = 1” in stocking stitch

So let’s get crackalackin’!

The Cuff…

·      With 2 strands of your yarn held together cast on 36 stitches. I find using the long-tail method gives a tidy edge.  If you’ve never done a long-tail cast on there is a great video here. (For a smaller, and perhaps gal-sized hand, you can cast on 33 stitches.  Smaller still? Use size 5 needles and a single strand.  They won’t be as durable that way though!)

·      Divide your stitches evenly onto your double-pointed needles and join in the round, being careful not to twist your stitches.

·      For the next 2-and-a-half inches do a knit 2 purl 1 rib. Or longer if you want a longer cuff.

·      Next 5 rounds: knit

·      At this point you may want to place a stitch marker to mark the beginning of the round.  I find I don’t need to but this is YOUR project, not mine :0)

The Thumb Gusset… (Insert bullet ricochet sound here ala spaghetti western style!)

The gusset is the part of the glove that makes up the thumb.  It will be made up of the stitches between the stitch markers and will look like a ‘V’.  When you have all of the stitches in the ‘V’ that you need you will put them on ‘waste yarn’, some old scrap of yarn that you were thinking might be useless but isn’t really :0) Then you’re going to forget about those stitches and just pretend they’re not there until you finish the rest of that thar glove.

·      Round one of thumb gusset: K6, pm, m1f, pm. Now knit to the end of the round. 

·      Round two and every other even numbered round in the gusset (in other words every other round) knit until the end of the round.

·      Round three and every other odd numbered round (in other words every other round) knit to the marker and: sm, m1f, knit up to and including the last stitch before the next marker, m1f, sm, knit to the end of the round.  You are going to do this until you have 11 stitches between the markers.

·      Next round knit.

·      Next round: knit up to the marker and remove it.  Put all of the stitches that are between the markers on that waste yarn I was talking about.  Join the rest of the stitches snuggly together and finish the round.

·      You now should have a thumb hole….YAY! Pretty cool huh?

Finish up The Body…

·      For the next five rounds knit.

·      For the next 2 inches k2, p1 rib

·      You can do both of these a little longer depending upon who you are making them for.  Just remember to keep track so that both of your gloves match ;0)

·      Bind off loosely.

The Thumb…

·      Transfer the 11 stitches that you have on waste yarn onto your dpn’s.

·      Now if you look closely in the ‘v’ shape where the thumb gusset attaches to the body of the glove you will see 2 stitches that look like you can pick them up.  Pick up the stitches directly below those two stitches.  You now have 13 stitches on your dpn’s.

·      Knit the next 5 rounds.

·      For the following three rounds: *k2, p1* 4 times then knit 1.  This will keep the edge from curling and keep the look uniform.

·      Bind off loosely.

·      Weave in all of your ends and….Viola….you got yerself a lovely pair of fingerless gloves!

Some terms used in this here pattern:

·      K = knit

·      P = purl

·      Pm = place marker

·      Sm = slip marker

·      M1f = make one front.  Great video here.

·      DPN’s = double-pointed-needles

Please feel free to contact me if you need any help at all with this pattern! 

saltspringstrings@gmail.com

And please feel free to use this pattern as you wish.  If you want to knit up a whole slew of these and sell them knock yerself out. But please, pretty please, give me credit for the pattern and direct people to my blog!