Monday, June 12, 2006

Glove Pattern, 1947









I know this is a pretty generic four-needle glove pattern but, dude! it comes in like eleven different sizes.

Click on the thumbnails for readable, printable charts.

The Complete Book of Knitting, Elizabeth Mathieson, 1947.


Urban Cotton Gloves

This is my handspun version, called "Urban Cotton" because I grew the white cotton in pots on the front porch of my apartment building in a big ol' nasty city. I knitted these guys probably ten years ago and they don't seem to show any wear. I just fling them in the washer with the other laundry and then hang them up to dry.

I used 4 oz. of Foxfibre Breeder's Green cotton maybe 4 oz. white cotton, and 2 oz. white Bluefaced Leicester wool. Green cotton bought from Woodland Woolworks. Foxfibre yarns and fibers availible from Vreseis.

Foxfibre is a naturally colored yarn that actually darkens every time you wash it. "Breeder's" colors are the blends made from the cotton grown in the nurseries where new colors are being developed and will differ from year to year. My batch of green was bought about the same time as my spinning wheel about twelve years ago.

I handcarded the green and the white cottons together before blending in the wool. The color is a streaky olive green (darker than the photo), mostly because I was using hand cards so the blend wasn't even. The stripe in the center was made from wool fiber samples. I thought I wouldn't have enough of the green so I carded some samples from a company I wasn't going to order from. Oh, and guess how much green I had left when I was done knitting? Enough to fill in the stripy areas.

Don't ask me how many twists per inch. I don't count while I'm spinning; I tend to do it by feel rather than by math. Counting would make it too much like work. I spin on a manky old Fricke S10 that doesn't seem to be ready to die any time soon despite all the mileage I've put on it. An eight-hour spinning session is nothin', man.