Ribbed Gloves

Oh, how I love anniversaries and birthdays... Those magical times of the year are the perfect excuse to try out something new!  (I very much would like to digress and talk about the Sweater Curse and appropriate gifts at appropriate times, but that's another post for another day.)  For our one year anniversary, I finally gave in and made the boyfriend a pair of hobo gloves.  He'd been begging for a pair for months and I really, really wanted to try individual fingers, especially since the Fetching gloves had gone so swimmingly!  (You'l have to excuse the pictures this time, the boy is no friend of cameras...)

Really, you'd think I beat him.



I think the Men's Fingerless Gloves (on Ravelry) are my favorite "manly" knitted gloves I've found so far, and the pattern is definitely versatile enough to be adapted to a variety of hand shapes, yarn types, needle sizes, etc.  (Also, free pattern!)  I used Cascade 220 Heathers in Dk Green (2445) with size 4 US needles.  Total cost wasn't bad either, about $11, including the lovely stainless steel double pointed needles.

See?  He has smile muscles! >.>



(If you don't plan on making this pattern, ignore the next two paragraphs.  They won't make much sense anyways!  They're mostly just notes for me to come back to...)

I started following the pattern as written, but when I got the the palm, it was huge!  (An issue also mentioned in the comments on Ravelry.)  So I frogged it, and started with 48 stitches, rather than 52.  The boyfriend still thought the palm was a little loose, so my next pair will probably begin with 40 or 44 stitches and not increase at the wrist.  The thumb gusset seemed fine, and fairly easy to figure out following the pattern.  However, when it asks for 3 rows of stockinette for the length of the palm, I ended up needing 10, probablybecause I was using a smaller needle than in the pattern.  Oh, also, I used 15 rows of ribbing for the wrist, more than suggested by the pattern...

Of course, because I changed the cast on stitches, that affected the number of stitches I had for the four fingers.  Aside from the cast on stitches, I gave the fore and middle fingers 7 stitches from the front and back (total: 14) and the ring and pinkie fingers 6 stitches from the front and back (total: 12).  Like in the palm, I also increased the number of rows for finger length.  The rows for thumb, fore, middle, ring, and pinkie were, respectively, 6, 10, 13, 11, and 9.



I particularly liked the ribbing at the wrists and finger ends.  It kept the edges from rolling and made the widths more adjustable and elastic.  And, since they're very warm, the boy should get lots of use out of them!  (He lives in the mountains... brrr...)

You'll probably be seeing a similar pair soon, since my brother has ask for gloves as well.  He initially said yellow, to match a yellow hat he wears every winter, but bright yellow gloves sound terrifying.  He says he'd be okay with black or charcoal grey, but a nice maroon or navy would look so nice with his complexion!  Arggg....  It's my favorite kind of conundrum.

Happy Sunday!

- Cristy