Persistent Knitter

I am determined* to make the next project I start a pair of gloves for myself.

So the hunt for a glove pattern begins.  I have Vogue Knitting Mittens and Gloves and have been scouring magazines and my LYS bookshelf for some cool patterns/inspirations.  I haven’t knit gloves or mittens before; but if I can knit socks, how hard can gloves be? :)  I’m a bit dissapointed that the patterns I found for glove/mittens are either unpatterened and boring or of the latvian variety (with pointy ends, and lots and lots of colorwork), not quite my cup of tea.  I really want gloves.

I have several yarn choices. Some gorgeous Alpaca, koigu in deepest darkest blue (which looks black and featureless in the picture), and more koigu in a lovely camel color.  (And lets not mention all that neglected Koigu in my stash that is aging as we speak). All shown here:

I started with the Alpaca, tried a k2p2 cuff on 48 stitches. It fit and looked ok, but I don’t want whole gloves made out of variegated yarn.  I then moved on to the deep blue koigu and knit about an inch on a pattern from this book that had two cables and some moss stitch patterning. In the deep blue you couldn’t really see the patterns very well, but I might have been satisfied with it if it weren’t too big. 

The camel colored Koigu I bought will go well with the Alpaca.  I found this mitten in a book my friend Judy loaned me.  (also seen here in different colors with some really great tips on knitting gloves) I have started this, using the koigu as the background color, and will use my alpaca as a single color throughout whenever it calls for another color.  So far this pattern is winning, and I hope to get enough knit tonite to make it travel-worthy. (Yes, I am ignoring Mike’s secret socks for now)

In my quest for glove patterns, I remembered this cool pattern Judy made:
http://www.tata-tatao.to/knit/simplegloves/herringbone.html
Warning: it’s in japenese, and babelfish will get you only so far. There are charts, and Judy made a great pair of gloves from it without knowing an iota of Japenese. so it is possible.

(Many thanks to my spinning/knitting group who laughed with me as I started about 5 times tonite, counting/mis-counting, dropping needles, trying a few new cast ons, dropping needles, trying a 6 stitch cable w/out cable needle, babbling and mumbling about how the pattern had an error (it didn’t) and what pattern should I use?  Of course they were right, you couldn’t see the cable in the dark yarn.)

Oh, yeah.
I finished sleeve 2 on Hardangervidda. I have put away almost all my needles except the one I will need to finish the neckline/placket.  I am gearing myself up to measure and cut the sleeve steeks.  I thought maybe tonite, but now that it’s here, I’d rather knit on my gloves!

*read as I will make a pair of gloves for myself no matter how many times I have to rip out & start over, how many yarn/pattern combos I have to go through and no matter how long it takes.