Glove Love and the GIANT UFO

This glove had been making trouble for months in the pile o'crap important knitting paraphernalia on my couch glorified futon knitting area. It's mate was there, too. I think they would meet furtively somewheres in the fluidity of the mass that is my well-organized, systematic storage facility. There they would snicker like Beavus and Butthead and hatch diabolical plots, pitting yarn against yarn. I'm sure they were high fiving on the one hand and and high zeroing on the other over acts of sabotage such as what you see pictured here. I expect my yarn to be tangle free now that those 2 miscreants have been put in their place, the top shelf of the hall closet.

I received the black yarn in a swap with my Monday night knitters last December. I've got an oatmealy color of it also, perhaps 2 balls. I've got most of one of the black balls left. It's got some angora in it, which provides the nice halo which I can see (and feel) and you can't. Well, maybe you can see it a little. It's got other natural fibers in it, maybe silk and definitely wool. It has a felted feel, but actually it's got 2 plies. It knits in an aran gauge. Sooner or later I'll come across the other balls that still have labels. No gloves fit better than gloves you practically knitted directly onto your hand. They are plain stockinette.

How to Knit a Glove

I used my basic method where I knit the cuff then a couple of plain rows where I increase 1-4 stitches for the palm. Then I increase 1 for the thumb gusset and put markers on either side of the increase. After that I increase at both markers every other row or so until the gusset is 15 stitches, then I knit straight until I think the level of the knitting has reached the big valley between the thumb and index finger. Then I put the thumb stitches aside and forge on. Of the fingers, you have to knit the baby finger first because its valley is 2 rows lower than the other valleys. With this yarn I needed 13 stitches for the Baby, 14 for the Weakling, and 15 each for the Tall Man, Pointer and Thumb. I used approximately 10-12 of the live stitches for each finger and picked up and cast on evenly on sides between the fingers. In order to close up gaps I had to pick up more than the necessary number of stitches, so I decreased gently to get the right fit. I didn't know in advance how many stitches I'd need until after doing the pinky. From there I could estimate, but trying on was the key. Closing the fingers was a little more difficult for me to get the exact right length. I had to be willing to rip and reknit those last few stitches, which I was, but it was only on a few stitches. The decreasing there is all done in the last 2 rows before stringing the remaining stitches and pulling up tight. Figuring out that the finger doesn't need to be carefully tapered has saved me a good deal of knitting angst.

I call this my method, but I read it somewhere else first. I don't know where. It is probably an amalgam of patterns. I just hope I get a lot of use out of them before I lose one. But when I do, since it is ambidextrous, it will make a pair with any singleton I have, most of which are lefts.

As I go to press, the picture of the pair of gloves is vertical. It's not supposed to be. Perhaps it will have fixed itself by the time you visit.

The Hill: Grass and weeds subtracted, rocks added. I have erosional thinking. I played around with this hill for years, trying to get things to take over the grass. Now I've hired a neighbor. My tweezer method wasn't very effective, but we'll see about the sledgehammer method. Now it's a race to get it all planted, but I can't decide what to plant. I might hire a woman I've met who is a landscape designer to plan the space. There are some ground covery things planted at the bottom toward the side with the phlox (the big green strip). They are starting to fill out, just a bit. It's been raining everywhere but here for a few weeks now. See how dry the ground is?

Cat added for scale.