from charity shop jumper to crocheted gloves in just over 24 hours. pix (and probably rsi) to follow.

Crocheted Gloves Pattern

i had to rescale the pattern for the laceweight yarn (18 wpi) and unfortunately it didn’t quite work out as double the number of stitches, so i had a fair bit of head scratching to do, especially when it came to the fingers. i didn’t get it quite right and they’re a little wonky, though my attempt to make a left and right mirror pair (despite what the pattern claimed my first one turned out very definitely handed) was pretty successful. they don’t match properly, despite careful counting, but the discrepancy isn’t too bad and they’re wearable. made for my dad who’s miles away so had to borrow unwilling hand model and estimate from my own. because i was against a deadline i didn’t have time to use markers for the ends of rows for the fingers, which i really should have done. some of the fingers narrow drastically then bulge out again where i realised my mistake but didn’t even have time to frog a couple of rows back.

the one on the left looks a wee bit fuzzy cos it show the inside, which i brushed. i was planning to felt them for warmth, so i picked a 100% wool, hand wash jumper, and while the swatch felted nicely it didn’t shrink at all, it stretched. i guess this might be because the crimp left in the wool after frogging meant there was a lot of stretch in the stitches. anyway i couldn’t be sure that the result would be wearable and didn’t have much time, and i remembered someone talking about brushing the inside of gloves. i used the dog brush i have for perking up our sheepskins after washing and it worked a treat - it was quite harsh and stretched them out a bit but i figured since they ended up a wee bit on the small side that was no bad thing. it really did make them super soft and even warmer.

and even though i got the parcel out of the door by 5.15pm it didn’t actually get into the last post at 5.30 because of queues at the post office. so i could have spent the extra time doing them properly…

Lacy Bookmark becomes felted bracelet/choker… pix to follow.

i really liked the colour and feel of the felted sample i made up so i did this little number as a warm-down from my all-night glove session. slightly adapted, i shortened the joining chains from 8 st to 4 to make it narrower. it was going to be a bracelet but then i realised i didn’t have enough rows for the pattern to work out properly so i added more and it ended up too long. i should have been thinking about the ribbon weaving too, as i ended up with an even number of posts, rather then the odd number i needed but it’s not that noticeable.

it felted perfectly and feels scrummy, looks quite cute too if you can get past how badly my table needs polishing.

giant pink bunny. like a postmodern white horse

ananova

and another view

gelatin (project home page)