Wednesday 5 December 2012

Basket Weave Fingerless Gloves- Free Pattern!


Now the point of this blog was to write about two of my favourite hobbies, cooking and knitting. And you may have noticed that the knitting has been in rather short supply as of late (sorry!), in fact I have only posted one pattern, my Tidal Cable Headband

Now this is not because I haven't been knitting, (I actually feel like I have been doing nothing but knit over the past few weeks!) but because I'm working on some secret projects which I don't want certain nosey members of my household to know about just yet!



However, I can share with you my lovely cosy basket weave hand-warmers (as these are well known of in my circle of friends, so I don't need to keep shtum from prying eyes.)

If you are reading this, I'm going to assume you're interested in knitting. If you're interesting in knitting I'm also going to assume you know all about the Purl Bee and how awesome it is. There are some wonderful patterns on there, not just for knitting but for crochet and sewing and other such noble interests :) 

I fell in love with the Ribbed Hand-Warmers as soon as I saw them, and quickly knitted myself up a pair in a lovely yarn I've been stashing for just such a project. Whilst I absolutely adore them and wear them every day, I've found that I'm not keen on the long length of these. I wear a leather jacket with close fitting sleeves, which the hand/arm warmers just don't fit comfortably under and I wanted a little more flexibility in the palm area. So using the Purl Bee's pattern as a starter I have fashioned a shorter hand-warmer pattern with a stitch which gives a little more width to the finished project in the palm. 

Materials:
1 skein of yarn in a pretty colour (I used a nice green and cream 4 ply yarn, but any would work well, just alter the gauge and/or needle size accordingly)
4 Double Pointed Needles size 3.5mm

Gauge:
13 stitches per 2 inches un-stretched (for ribbing)
9 stitches per 2 inches  comfortably stretched (for ribbing)

Pattern:
Ribbing stitch- 
P3 K2
Thumb Hole Basket Weave stitch- 
Basket Weave Pattern
Rows 1 and 3- K2 P4 Worked on the inside of work
Rows 2 and 4- P2 K4 Worked on the outside of work
Rows 5 and 7- P3 K2 P1 Worked on the inside of work
Rows 6 and 8- K3 P2 K1 Worked on the outside of work
Standard Basket Weave Stitch-
Rows 1 to 4- K2 P4
Rows 5 to 8- P3 K2 P1


Wrist Section:

Cast on 50 stitches on DPNs (I do 20 on the first, then 15 on the second and third but it's up to you).
Join for working in the round without twisting (which impossible to fix after this stage!), placing a marker at the front of the first needle (or use the cast off tail as a marker)
Follow pattern for ribbing until the piece measures 4 inches in length.

Thumb Hole:

Turn the work so you should now be working back on yourself, the same way you have just worked. 

Start the basket weave pattern, starting with Row 1 when you reach the marker turn the work around again to work back on yourself and begin Row 2. Repeat until the thumb hole measures 1 ½ inches.




Working on the inside of your work,
back the way you have just worked.


Working on the outside of your work, as normal.














Hand:

Finishing on Row 4 or 8, join again to work in the round. Continue into the standard basket weave stitch (you should now always be working on the outside of work.) Continue for another 2 inches. Cast off, finishing either on Row 4 or Row 8. Then you can start your second hand-warmer :)



Good luck! I hope you enjoy making these and they keep you super toasty throughout this bitter (but very merry!) season.

Any questions, pop me a comment and I'll try my hardest to fix it.

Enjoy,

HanaLou.