Widows Weeds Fingerless Gloves

After my dad died earlier this year, my mum asked me to knit a pair of black fingerless gloves for her. I decided on something unspectacular with an easy lace pattern, so that it would be suitable of early spring and not too flashy.

This work by Knitting and so on is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Materials

• about 25 to 30 grams of fingering weight yarn
• 3mm dpns
• 3 stitch markers
• scrap yarn or yarn holder 
• tapestry needle to weave in ends

Lace pattern 

This lace pattern works in the round with any multiple of 8 stitches:

Round 1: p1, k7 

Round 2: p1, k1, k2tog, yo, k1, k2tog, yo, k1

Round 3: p1, k7 

Round 4: p1, k7 

Round 5: p1, k1, yo, ssk, k1, yo, ssk, k1, 

Round 6: p1, k7 

Instructions

CO48 (or any other muliple of 8) and join in round and place a stitch marker to mark the end of the round

Knit 6 rows of p1, k3-ribbing

Then start the lace pattern

Round 1: * p1, k7, repeat from *

Round 2: * p1, k1, k2tog, yo, k1, k2tog, yo, k1, repeat from *

Round 3: * p1, k7, repeat from * 

Round 4: * p1, k7, repeat from * 

Round 5: * p1, k1, yo, ssk, k1, yo, ssk, k1, repeat from * 

Round 6: * p1, k7,  repeat from * 

and repeat rounds 1 to 6 until you start the thumb gusset. In the last round place two stitch markers around one purl channel

Thumb gusset

While continuing the lace pattern for the rest of the round knit the thumb gusset as follows

Round 1: [lace pattern up to marker] into the purl stitch: k1 yo k1 [marker, lace pattern to end]

Round 2: [lace pattern up to marker] p1 k1 p1 [marker, lace pattern to end]

Round 3: [lace pattern up to marker] p1 k1 p1 [marker, lace pattern to end]

Round 4: [lace pattern up to marker] p1, into the knit stitch: k1 yo k1, p1 [marker, lace pattern to end]

Round 5: [lace pattern up to marker] p1, k to 1 before marker, p1 [marker, lace pattern to end]

Round 6: [lace pattern up to marker] p1, k to 1 before marker, p1 [marker, lace pattern to end]

Round 7: [lace pattern up to marker] p1, mk1r, k to 2 before marker, mk1l, p1 [marker, lace pattern to end]

Round 8: [lace pattern up to marker] p1, k to 1 before marker, p1 [marker, lace pattern to end]

Round 9: [lace pattern up to marker] p1, k to 1 before marker, p1 [marker, lace pattern to end]

Repeat the last three rounds until the thumb hole is big enough for you (for me this was the case at 17 sts between the markers

In the next round, knit lace pattern up to marker, place the stitches between the markers on a stitch marker or some scrap yarn, CO1 (with backwards loop CO) and continue the lace pattern to the end of round.

Continue the lace patter for about 2 pattern repeats, and finish with 5 rounds of p1, k3-ribbing, BO in pattern.

Thumb

Remove thumb stitches from stitch holder, and pick up about 5 stitches from the gap (between last thumb stitch and top) and the underside of the backwards loop CO. 

(At this point I had 22 sts on my needles).

Knit stockinette stitch in rounds, knitting decreases in the first two rounds where the stitches from stitch holder meet the newly picked up stitches to avoid gaps. Continue with a few more stockinette stitch rounds. End with a few rows of p1, k2-ribbing. BO in patten.

(The ribbing you can do at the top of the thumb depends on the number of stitches that you aim for - I aimed for a multiple of 3 (22 sts minus twice two decreases = 22-2x2 = 18), that's why I did a p1k2-ribbing. If you finish on a multiple of 4, you can do a p1k3-ribbing to exactly match the ribbing at the top of the mitts.)

Make two.

Bitilasana Yoga Socks

Recently, a friend asked me to knit some yoga socks for her – she only specified the colors she wanted: black and fuchsia. So, first of all I went stash-diving and found that I had three yarns (in fingering weight) that would fit that color scheme – and then I thought about the design. As usual, I wanted something without any yarn cutting while knitting one piece. Unfortunately, I didn’t reach that specific goal but nevertheless, I quite like the look of these yoga socks.

This pattern describes how to do this in three colors. Of course you can adjust it and knit it only with one yarn or in two colors. I guess it would look interesting with some variegated sock yarn (and with one yarn you wouldn’t even have to break your yarn while knitting one sock :)

As to the name: the wavy lines reminded me of the cat-cow-sequence in yoga; and Bitilasana is the name for cow pose.

This work by Knitting and so on is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Materials

• a total of about 30 grams of fingering weight yarn in 3 colors
• 3 knitting needles (3mm), it’s best to use double pointed needles (e.g. one circular and one straight needle)
• a tapestry needle for grafting and to weave in ends
• scrap yarn for crochet provisional CO
• a crochet hook for crochet provisional CO

Techniques

• Provisional Cast-On: My preferred method of a provisional cast-on is the crochet provisional CO – as shown in this YouTube Video
• Grafting: Joni Coniglio has written a series on grafting (“5 Grafting Myths”) on the knitting daily blog. All her post can be found here: http://www.knittingdaily.com/author/joni-coniglio/).
  The techniques used here, can be found in this blog post.
• Here's a short (!) description of the grafting techniques used for this pattern:
• If you want to graft in garter stitch you can do it in two ways – depending on the way you hold your knitting and which yarn you’re using.
• (1) If you do it with your working yarn (in case of this pattern the needle you knitted your last row with is the front needle), you’d want to have the knit valley in front and the purl ridge on the back needle.
  Here the formula is (in short): Front needle: knit slip, purl leave; back needle: knit slip, purl leave
  Or spelled out: 
• First stitch: on front needle insert needle purlwise and leave stitch on the needle, on the back needle do the same 
• For all following stitches:
  Front needle: insert needle knitwise and slip stitch from needle, insert needle purlwise into the next stitch and leave the stitch on your needle
  Back needle: do the same, i.e. insert needle knitwise and slip stitch from needle, insert needle purlwise into the next stitch and leave the stitch on your needle
• (2) If you work with yarn that you kept when casting on your stitches (in case of this pattern, your front needle contains the stitches of the provisional CO), you’d want the purl ridge on the front needle and the knit valley on the back needle.
• Here is the formula in short: Front needle: purl slip, knit leave; back needle: purl slip, knit leave
• Or spelled out:
  First stitch: on front needle insert needle knitwise and leave stitch on the needle, on the back needle do the same
  For all following stitches:
  Front needle: insert needle purlwise and slip stitch from needle, insert needle knitwise into the next stitch and leave the stitch on your needle
  Back needle: do the same, i.e. insert needle purlwise and slip stitch from needle, insert needle knitwise into the next stitch and leave the stitch on your needle
• (3) If you want to decrease a stitch while grafting, you need to push the … needle through two stitches instead of one, both when it’s left on the needle, and when you’re about to slip it off.
  E.g. when you want to decrease a stitch on your front needle in the middle of a row in garter stitch:
• Front needle: insert needle knitwise and slip stitch (stitch before the decrease), insert needle purlwise through the next two stitches (the decrease) and leave on needle 
• Back needle: insert needle knitwise and slip stitch from needle, insert needle purlwise into the next stitch and leave the stitch on your needle
• Front needle: insert needle knitwise into the first two stitches (as if to k2tog) and slip from needle, insert needle purlwise into the next stitch and leave the stitch on your needle
• Back needle: insert needle knitwise and slip stitch from needle, insert needle purlwise into the next stitch and leave the stitch on your needle

Gauge and What to Measure
Before starting to knit measure the circumference of your ankles. You will be asked to knit until you have reached half of that circumference.

General Construction
The picture below shows the general construction. You start with half of the intended lenght of the sock for the first provisional CO. Then you knit half of the sock's circumference and afterwards provisionally CO the other half of the intended stitches. The part that is knitted next is used to cover the back of the foot and the front part of your ankles (wide part in the middle).
When this is finished, the first provisional CO is grafted to the upper stitches creating the first tube of your sock. Then you continue in another narrow strip of horizontal ribs and finish with a second graft to complete the second part of the tube.

Instructions

Lower narrow part

With scrap yarn provisionally CO22 sts, leave a tail long enough to graft and knit the first row with colour 1.
With color 2:
Row 1 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 2 (WS): k all
With color 3:
Row 3 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 4 (WS): k all
With color 1:
Row 5 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 6 (WS): k all
With color 2:
Row 7 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 8 (WS): k all
With color 3:
Row 9 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 10 (WS): k all
Repeat rows 5 to 10 until the piece as long as half the circumference of your feet.


Wide part

With color 1:
Row 1 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 2 (WS): k all - on a third needle provisionally cast on 20 stitches and continue knitting row 2.
(see photos 1 and 2 in the illustration below).
With color 2:
Row 3 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 4 (WS): k all
With color 3:
Row 5 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 6 (WS): k all
With color 1:
Row 7 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 8 (WS): k all
With color 2:
Row 9 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 10 (WS): k all
With color 3:
Row 11 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 12 (WS): k all

Repeat rows 7 to 12 until the piece as long as the circumference of your feet.
Slip stitches to other side of the needle.

Put the first provisionally CO stitches on another needle (photo 3), fold it over (photo 4) and graft these 22 stitches to 20 of the that are on the working needle with the yarn tail in color 1.

The needle holding the stitches from the former provisional CO is now the front needle.
Use the grafting technique (2) as described above while decreasing the first and last stitch on your front needle (as described under grafting techniques (3) above).

Upper narrow part

With color 1:
Row 1 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 2 (WS): k all
With color 2:
Row 3 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 4 (WS): k all
With color 3:
Row 5 (RS): k1, * kfb k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, kfb, repeat from * until there is only one stitch left
Row 6 (WS): k all

Repeat rows 1 to 6 until you have reached the circumference of your feet - measuring from the second provisional CO 

Cut your yarn but leave a tail long enough for grafting.

Put the 20 stitches from the 2nd provisional CO on another needle (photo 5) and graft it to the 22 sts on the working needle (photo 6). The former working needle is your front needle while grafting

Use grafting technique (1) as described above and decrease the fifth stitch on the front needle and the fifth stitch before the last.

Weave in ends.

Make two.

Sideways Top

Currently, instead of knitting small things like slippers or fingerless gloves, I like doing bigger projects, i.e. tops and sweaters. And since I don't like the finishing work on my knitting projects (i.e. assembling the pieces or weaving in ends) I have tried to design a sweater that can be knitted in one piece and that doesn't have to be sewn together in the end. I hope it will work.

Here's what it looks like so far.