Like all knitters, I’ve spent my December finishing projects which I probably should have started earlier. I know it’s easy to feel unmotivated by any wool in July, when it is 95 degrees, but this is no excuse for leaving gloves and hats and scarves until two weeks before Christmas! So here is the good news: all presents were finished and wrapped before presentation!
For my man, I knitted a black, cabled cap out of merino to match the gloves I knitted him for Valentine’s Day two years ago. When he unwrapped it, he put it on immediately, but I haven’t seen him wear it since and it is now stuffed in his car with the gloves. I am unsure if he is wearing any of his knitted clothing, or if they are only in his car to prove that he could wear them if he wanted to. (He is a manly-man, above wearing any sort of heavy winter clothes because he “gets too hot.” Too hot? In the Chicago winter? I suspect a conspiracy against my knitting habits).
For my sister I knitted long evening gloves in a green merino (Claudia Hand Painted Yarns in the fingering weight) entitled “Eat your Veggies.” And, since I overestimated the amount of yarn necessary to knit the gloves, I knitted her a matching lace cowl. The cowl was a delight to knit (apparently I knit rather quickly when marathon-ing Harry Potter movies, and when it is two days until Christmas) and the pattern was very easy. Like most lace patterns, it called for blocking at the end, a “suggestion” which I usually ignore when knitting. My previous opinion being, when something is knitted, it’s done. The end.
However, as I’ve been knitting more complicated projects, I thought I’d stretch myself and see what this blocking was about. Using the blocking instructions (found here: http://www.eunnyjang.com/knit/2006/12/how_to_be_happy.html) I carefully soaked the cowl and pinned it to the floor (no blocking board here) with “T” pins to the exact pattern measurements from the pattern. Fast-forward one day and my cowl was dried and perfectly measured, ready for seaming! The final product was more precise than when it was just off the needles, but not hugely so. (I’ve since blocked other projects with wonderful results).
Knitting her gloves was not so fun. I swore two years ago, when I finished my man’s beautiful black gloves, that I would never knit gloves again for two reasons. 1. There are too many threads left at the end of each glove: one for the cast on, one for the cast off, and 2 for the next four fingers, with a total of 10 loose threads per glove. This is 20 threads for two gloves, if you’ve measured the finger lengths correctly. 2. If you do not measure the fingers correctly, and knit each finger too short, you must add more yarn to the fingers, and thus another 2 yarn ends to be sewn into the glove.
However, this summer, at the Stitches Midwest festival, I found Annie Modesitt’s Romantic Hand Knits book, and the beautiful elbow-length lace gloves. I knew, holding the book, that my sister would love them. She is a classic beauty with long, dark hair and delicate features and a sophisticated, quirky sense of style. I had visions of her as Audrey Hepburn, eating a bagel at Tiffany’s in these gloves (never mind that she lives on the west coast). She would wear them everywhere on campus and her friends would all want pairs for themselves! I had to knit her gloves for Christmas.
Inspired by the lacy pattern, I found a soft merino in green (her favorite color!) and set to work. As I knitted, I slightly altered the pattern, but did not write it down because “I’ll remember when I knit the second glove.” Then I got to the hand and put the project down for a few months, coming back to finish it a few weeks ago. At that point, I used the measurements for my mother’s hands (since they are about my sister’s size) and finished the first glove. Miraculously, all the fingers were long enough, although I did have to rip back a few rows because some of them were too long. Then I started on glove no. 2. Halfway through the arm, I realized that I hadn’t made the same adjustments to the pattern I made with glove 1. I cursed under my breath and ripped back 30 rows. However, I persevered and finished glove 2 with minimal angst. I even inserted elastic in the casing at the cuff of each glove so that they will stay up on my sister’s arms. Thrilled with my success, I started to sew in all the loose tails. All 50 of them. “Aren’t you done with those yet?” asked my dear boy, quite helpfully, after an hour. I glared at him and at the gloves for good measure. This did not make the loose threads disappear faster.
On Christmas morning, when my sister opened her box I reflected on how all the angst and loose tails had been worth it, to make her the best gloves ever. She would want me to knit her a pair in every color! She pulled back the tissue paper to reveal the masterful gloves. “Oooo!” she exclaimed as she put one on. Her face fell. What had I done?! “The pinky fingers are too short.”
I’m never knitting gloves again. I mean it this time!
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