Saturday, March 08, 2008

Step by Step Gloves

Hi Knitters,
I had no idea that a lot of knitters are intimidated by gloves. I guess it is all of the fingers. I want to show you how simple gloves really are if you just break it down into steps. I know that cable pattern is pretty complicated but you could always do stockinette stitch instead.

You start by knitting a tube just like the one above. I always knit things like this in the round on my double-pointed needles. The blue yarn is the scrap yarn to hold the stitches for the fingers and the thumb hole. I love the way Robin Melanson did this thumb hole by knitting with scrap yarn where the thumb should be placed.
Then on the top of the tube you place each finger of active stitches on scrap yarn. You take, for example, 5 stitches from the back of the hand and 5 stitches from the palm of the hand to create a 10 stitch finger.
Here you can see the 4 finger holes all set to knit.
You just go finger by finger placing the stitches on your double-pointed needles and knitting as long as fits over your fingers. It is easy to custom size gloves because you can try them on as you go.
Now I have the fingers finished and really those work up in a jiffy because the number of stitches is so small. So I placed the thumb hole stitches on my dpns and then I will remove the scrap yarn. Next I redistribute the stitches on 3 dpns and knit up the thumb.
Here they are! I love how these turned out. I talked about these gloves extensively here. They are lovely gloves and they fit and feel like a dream. Now I won't embarrass the kids since I have a finished pair.
I took this shot while I was photographing the gloves. My daughter is so funny. She basically never takes off her stripey stocking hat (the pattern is in itty-bitty hats) I made her about 3 or more years ago. She adores this hat and even wears it to bed on many a night. A lot of times she can't find her hat in the morning and it ends up being in her rumpled bed. I keep wanting to replace that felted pom-pom but I don't even ask her about it. I know she will say no. It is hat love. Big time.

Now go make some gloves!
best, susie

11 comments:

YarnThing said...

You...YOU...You are a bad influence :-) Since I saw your gloves yesterday I HAD to go to Barnes and Nobel last night, buy the book and today I went to Knit Knack and purchased some cashmerino aran in a teal color so I could cast on tonight! BAD...BAD Susie :-)

These will be my first pair of gloves and I can't wait to make them ;-)

Thanks for letting me know about this GREAT book!!

xoxox
Marly

Denise said...

They look gorgeous, and you knit them so quickly. I think I will make gloves for gifts instead of fingerless mitts, as much as I like them I don't know anyone that would wear them, but gloves I think everyone would like.
I'm tempted to get that book, but I know there are lots of glove patterns I could find for free first!
How cute that your daughter loves her hat so much :-)

Sarah said...

Those are beautiful! I love how the cables go down the first and last fingers--such a pretty detail!

And your daughter is adorable. I love quirky things like that--it's one of my favorite things about having children!

kathy b said...

thank you for this very fine tutorial. i may just knit a glove correctly now!

ColorJoy LynnH said...

How wonderful that your daughter loves something you made. Not everyone has this "problem," after all. A felted pom pom is a high honor, I would say.

Tracy Batchelder said...

Very pretty! And, I adore how much your daughter loves her hat.

Alice Regan said...

Your gloves are gorgeous. Gloves are in my future...for now though I have to get through the 6 or 7 projects already started and awaiting my attention. I do adore your daughter's hat. Isn't it funny how they become so attached to certain objects! She's adorable.

susieknits said...

So gorgeous! I'm still a bit scared to try them...I'll have to refer back to your post. Thanks for sharing.

HannahB said...

I'd love to try these gloves, however, for some reason, I can't see the photos that you've posted with each step. I've tried using 3 different browsers with no luck. Is there another place where the photos can be seen?

Susan B. Anderson said...

hannahb - i just looked and the photos pop right up on Safari and Google Chrome. This is the only place the photos can be found... I hope it can work for you somehow.

MELISSA said...

Thank you so much for this post! i love knitting finger-less gloves 2 at a time cause it's so fun to knit and a very nice gift because the people i give it to seem to use it a lot (more than hats and scarves).

this year my husband, out of nowhere, asked for gloves. he never said he liked them when i was knitting them for somebody else - so i was ecstatic! the very next day i brought him to the yarn shop and let him pick the yarn he liked. casted on within an hour. i can only knit 10 mins at a time (job, toddler, lol) so it took me about a week to finish it.

on the final rows of ribbing, i asked him to try it on so i can see if the length was right - and it was. then he suddenly asked me: "you're still gonna divide these into fingers, right?" it kinda freaked me out. frogging a project is okay, but i cant seem to figure out a way to do it 2 at a time.

what i figured out to do is transfer them to dpns - and then i realized i dont know how to do the fingers either. lol! so to end my long irrelevant story i came across your page and these instructions are P-E-R-F-E-C-T. thank you very much!!!!!