Success?

Ok, ok, so it's way to early to declare a success.  A glove and a half too early, to be exact.

But this time it fits!  It's not way too small for my hand, and I thus won't be needing to frog back again and re-do the cuff to the largest size, and this is a Happy Thing.

(There really are cables there, I swear.  They even read in real life.  My camera just hates them, especially when it's after dark and there is thus no natural light to be had.

Also, for those who find the subtitle visible on my monitor in the background odd-it's from an anime called Baccano! and I promise it makes sense in context)

Yarn and pattern details can be found on my ravelry project page here

Conversations with myself

Starring my tempting side and my logical side

TS: So, winter is coming. . .

LS: Yes?

TS: It's supposed to be really cold this year. . .

LS: Yes?  Could we get on with it please?

TS: Well, it's been a few years since you've had a proper pair of gloves and I found this really neat pair in knitty

LS: Oh really? Lets take a look. . .

. . .wait, those are cables!


TS: yeeeeeeees?

LS: Didn't we decide we didn't like cabling after those socks we did back at the beginning of the year?

TS: Yes. . . .but these are so pretty!  Just look at them!

LS: Well. . .yes, I guess they are pretty.  But cables!  We hate doing cables!

TS: butbutbut, we learned to do them without a needle!  It's not that bad that way, remember?

LS: Well, I suppose, but-

TS: And gloves!  It'll be cold!  We can get nice yarn with that coupon from our birthday from the LYS and they'll be warm and pretty and-

LS: ALRIGHT! Alright, we can do the gloves!  Don't blame me if you end up hating it though.

So yeah, I started a pair of the oh-so-gorgeous Kingdom gloves last week.  Here's what I have so far:

. . .and here's the pile of kinky yarn from the, oh, half a glove or so that I frogged last night:

Can we talk about gauge here for a second?  Now, I admit that I tend to knit pretty tightly (probably as an artifact of the rather weird way in which I knit) but the recommended gauge and needle size here is kind of crazy.  The pattern calls for a gauge of 7.5 stitches to the inch in fingering weight yarn on a size 0 (2mm for any non-Americans out there reading this) needle.  This seems like absolute crazy talk to me, since I typically get 8 stitches to the inch on a size 2 (2.75mm), two full sizes larger.

Of course, being me, I didn't really bother to swatch before I bought the needle for this (I'm trying magic loop for the first time on these-the pattern calls for DPNs but I had a bit of a laddering fiasco on my last DPN project, so. . .).  Only after starting the cuff and getting to the end of the first chart did I realize that the size I was knitting wouldn't come near fitting around even my super-tiny wrists and think that checking the called-for gauge would be a good idea.  Since I liked the fabric I was getting and shouldn't be spending money on more needles didn't feel like buying another needle on which to magic loop, I decided to just knit a larger size, as I've done in the past.

So, I set out to knit the pattern as written for two sizes larger, and the cuff was perfect.  The hand, on the other hand, was. . .not, so much.  Of course, having a serious case of Knitter's Denial (otherwise known as "well, I'm sure it'll fit just fine after you block it!") I kept going, until I got to the end of the increases for the thumb gusset.  This thing barely fit on my hand-no way was it going to be comfortable once the thumb was separated out and everything was done.  So I frogged back to the cuff, and now I'm knitting three sizes larger than my actual hand.  I hope this fits, because if it's still too small I'm going to have to re-do the cuff this time too.

At least the cables are proving far less hateful this project around.

Yarn and pattern details can be found on my ravelry project page here