Purly 1, Gloves 0

Nona has started a glove bandwagon and she has been slowly wearing down my resistance to the glove movement.  My initial thoughts on knitting gloves can be summed up like this:

"Ten fingers?!  Why would you want to knit something that needed ten fingers?  I can buy gloves."

But then I got that awesome yarn from Kris and Jac that really would be perfect for gloves.  Then my hands started getting chilly in the morning and my only gloves are black, and I've systematically eliminated black from my wardrobe.  People, cream is the new black.

Then, yesterday, Nona posted her first installment in her series on gloves.  I love Nona's series patterns and the i-cord method for fingers really did sound easy.  So I caved.

I went home last night and started a pinky.  The i-cord method for glove fingers is simple, you knit a i-cord with 11 stitches and it leaves a ladder.  You then pick up the ladder yarn into stitches, creating the twelfth stitch.  Simple right?

The front, all nice and neat.

And the back, all not so nice and neat.  In fact,  loose and ugly.

Okay, so the picture is dark and crappy.  Let's just say that the time change is making my photography unneccessarily difficult.  It now gets dark in Seattle at 4:30pm and the only time I have somewhat adequate daylight is before I leave for work in the morning.  And it was grey and rainy today.   But take my word for it that those stitches are loose and large.  And that was the best out of three.

So at this point, I'm thinking maybe I was right about the whole glove thing.  Ten fingers!  Why would I want to knit something with ten fingers?

I sat humiliated by the gloves for a while.  Then I thought "this is ridiculous.  it's a little bit of yarn.  you are a smart girl, there has to be a way to make this work."  And then I realized I could knit the damn thing in the round on two circulars using the Turkish Cast-on.  I would still be knitting the finger from the tip down, and I could use the same number of stitches. 

And, you know what?  It totally worked.  See the nice neat front.

And the nice neat back.

Success!  Yay me.  Although seriously, knitting 12 stitches in the round on two circulars is really not a good time.  You spend 75% of your time moving needles and 25% of your time knitting.  And that finger took twice as long as the i-cord method. 

1 down, 9 to go.

Comments

[Areli]

Your finger looks so cute and cozy in its little sock. Can't wait to see the rest of the gloves.

[Dana]

Wow, you are such a knitting engineer! Your Turkish cast-on finger looks great. I will be interested to see your fab gloves develop. Cheers-

[marichan]

I love the fact that you are knitting gloves. I don't think I'd ever knit gloves, only because I don't really use them. I like your turkish cast on pinky!

[blossom]

wow, beautiful!! i want to knit gloves now.

are those yarn great! they are one of my fave.

[Meg]

Go the lateral thinking! Now all your hard work at the Turkish cast on has paid off!

[Stephanie]

You go. Fabulous pinky and aren't you smart to use the Turkish cast on. That yarn is yummy. No black? I'm not sure I can cope with those kind of restrictions. I have a hard enough time being fashionable (living in Wyoming is a constant challenge), if you take away black I'm doomed.

[Sara]

I'm with you on the glove knitting - just not something I'm interested in knitting at this point.

Tried the Turkish cast on this weekend, and wow! So easy! Love it. Deb's tutorials are terrific.

[Dena]

It's great that you figured out a finger method that works for you. I've made two i-cord pinkies now and they came out fine. But I've started the ring finger and the ladder is looking mighty wide. I wonder if I'll end up with some loose and ugly stitches in the back?

[Sara]

...with your method and the i-cord fingers, though, I may have to reconsider the whole glove thing.

How do you not wear black?

[yahaira]

interesting idea, the thought never crossed my mind to use the turkish cast on and to knit in the round. but again the whole two needles thing wont work out for me. I do have some blue alpaca calling me, it keeps saying it wants to be gloves. I dont know if to ignore the biatch or not

[grumperina]

You are a very clever girl, Purly! Your solution makes very nice glove fingers, even it there's a lot of shuffling needles around.

[Agnes]

Welcome, Purly!
You are indeed a smart girl!

[nona]

You go girl! I love your creative, let's figure it out spirit. The Turkish cast on is a great way to start the finger and even if it's mildly annoying to knit a little tube it's MUCH less annoying then knitting a little tube with an entire glove attached to it. If you don't mind, I'm going to update my i-cord finger pattern to suggest your modification as an alternative.

[terhi]

Hehee, clever! Your finger looks very nice indeed. (And I'm also interested about the cream thing - is it possible not to wear black at all, really?)

[Alison]

De-lurking to say 'Hi' and *cute* finger-sock! I don't want to knit gloves either, though socks are fine. In fact, I want to knit 'thumb-socks' so I can wear them with my toe-post sandals that have started damaging my feet. So I might have to try this method for making a big-toe-separate sock. By the way, I knitted a small tube last night (for my first 'Natalya' gauntlet, pattern here: http://savannahchik.typepad.com/patterns/natalya.pdf) and I can't imagine using 2 circs. DPNs were OK, tho.

[joy]

I love the way you tackle your knitting problems! I was going to knit fingerless gloves but now I want to try some fingers too!

[Beth S.]

"Cream is the new black"! I love it. :-) Myself, I've developed a preference for warm chocolate-y brown over black. It looks much better on me.

I'm trying to imagine knitting 12 stitches on 2 circs, and I think I would probably just give up and use dpns. But I love dpns, unlike most people.

[Diana]

I like your no-black policy! Winter is dark enough without wearing dark colors. The turkish cast on pinky looks quite perfect. I am looking forward to seeing the rest of the gloves!

[Carolyn]

I love the method you did...looks fantastic, so it took a little longer, but the results! Come on. I am also tempted by gloves. I love the ones in the current rowan and now this new holiday knits book I got has some fabulous gloves. Maybe in the new year.

[Debi]

Well done, finger looks GREAT! Glad I could help :)

[Krista]

Yay! I did the same. I saw that Nona was doing the I-cord fingers, but just the word I-cord makes me cringe, I so I didn't read on. I had recently learned the Turkish cast on for socks, and had the same flash of brilliance you did. Yours look great. Don't you just love the way it makes a nice little finger with so little effort? Now that I'm wondering how I'll get around to joining my fingers to the hand, I had a look at Nona's instructions, and there you were with my idea, having thought of it before me. Great minds must think alike.