Pages

Monday, August 27, 2012

Build me up buttercup

Last week I finished a pair of arm warmers but haven't gotten a chance to blog about them.  The pattern is a Blue Sky Alpacas pattern called Arm Warmers by Sylvia Hager.  Mine were knit using Blue Sky Alpacas Sport Weight yarn in the Cappuccino (#540) and Buttercup (#537) colors.  I used Cappuccino as the main color (2 skeins) and Buttercup (1 skein) as the contrasting color.  This yarn was wonderful to work with (seems like I say that a lot) and softer than I thought it would be.  My only complaint is that it is a tiny bit splitty, but not nearly as much as some other yarns I've worked with.  Overall I'd highly recommend this yarn and I look forward to working with it again.
The pattern gives two sizes and after a bit of research, I opted to knit the smaller size figuring that the ribbing about be somewhat forgiving (it is!).  Another reason for knitting the smaller size? These arm warmers are meant to fitted.  If you don't want a fitted look, then definitely knit the larger size.  In fact, you could even knit a size larger than the largest size given in the pattern by casting on extra stitches in multiplies of 5.  Even though I knit the small size for the arm, I decided to give myself more room at the elbow.  When it came to joining the contrasting color, instead of following the increases as written, I opted to increase to the number of stitches for the larger size glove.  
A unique feature of this pattern is that it is knit from the hand to the elbow.  The thumb is actually shaped using a form of short rows instead of a traditional bind off X number of stitches.  The reason I say a form of short rows is because they aren't true short rows, but the concept is similar - you'll see if you decide to knit these gloves (which I highly recommend!).  My only complaint with the pattern is with the instructions for how to join after shaping for the thumb.  It's not entirely clear that you shouldn't be joining "backwards", which would lead to knitting these inside out (which you aren't suppose to do).  

The details:
Needles: US 3 (3.25 mm) DPNs
Glove #1 = 43 g
Glove #2 = 44 g

Yarn remaining of each color:
Cappuccino = 16 g & 15 g
Buttercup = 30 g

Currently these gloves are residing at my local yarn store (LYS), Park Avenue Yarns as a shop sample for an upcoming class on double pointed needles.

P.S. It's really hard to take a photo of yourself wearing gloves.  Here is probably the best one (which is actually just the least worst photo), so that you can have an idea of what these look like on.

No comments:

Post a Comment