Mr. G got a pair of fingerless gloves (actually a tweed set from this same pattern that I never Ravelled) for his birthday last year. He loved them. He wore them regularly. Alas, their little threesome eventually parted ways, as so often happens with gloves and their wearers. One glove struck off to make its fortune elsewhere and was never seen again. I told my husband I’d knit him a new pair, and he some ideas for improvements: a longer, snugger cuff. Short fingers. (I grimaced inwardly about the fingers, since they demand time and fiddliness out of all proportion to their total stitch count, but this is True Love, people. True Love doesn’t balk at fingers on gloves.)

I bought the yarn last March in Seattle at Acorn Street Yarn Shop, Rauma Finullgarn in a rich heathery brown with hints of red. (It matches Mr. G’s new beard.) I figured I’d make up the pattern as I went. Seed stitch rib for a handsome, not too clingy cuff, a variation on Ripple Stitch for the back of the hand.

I consulted with Katrin about the finger placement, as she is the reigning expert. Here’s the formula she suggested for setting up the fingers:

1. Divide the total number of stitches for the hand by 4.

2. Subtract 2 from the little finger and add them to the number for the pointer finger.

3. Put the stitches for the little finger on waste yarn, cast on 3 stitches to bridge between the little finger and the ring finger, and work two more rounds on the remaining stitches.

Then you work one finger at a time, putting the live stitches for the others on waste yarn and casting on 3 between fingers. Katrin’s reasoning for adding the stitches subtracted from the little finger to the pointer finger is that the pointer is your largest finger. She’s perfectly right. However, the middle two fingers are actually getting a total of 6 stitches added to their count because of the cast-on between fingers; the pointer and little fingers only get 3 added. So the pointer winds up at +5 while the middle and ring are both +6. So next time I might actually subtract a stitch each from the middle and ring fingers’ allotment to add to the pointer, too. It wouldn’t be missed on the palm side.

Obviously, we need photos of the gloves ON Birthday Man. He was napping when I took these, trying not to come down with the creeping crud. (Knock on wood, it seems to have worked.) Must remember to bring the gloves and the camera on Sunday when we make our usual stop for coffee after choir.

The second annual Sarah + Katrin Christmas knitting exchange is only a month away. Last year’s pattern, you may remember, was the February Lady Sweater:

The idea is that we choose a pattern we both want to knit, select the yarn we want to end up wearing, and swap. Then the knitting begins. So last year I got to work with the glorious Luscious Silk Single from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, and I’ve had a whole year of pleasure in wearing my sweater of Blue Moon Twisted.

We kicked around a bunch of ideas for this year’s pattern, but finally settled on Eunny Jang’s Ivy League Vest (Interweave Knits Winter 2007) after discovering that we each had ample stash possibilities for this project. I believe we bought an extra skein each, but that was it! Mine are almost all Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift; Katrin’s are a hodgepodge of Hifa II, Satakieli (which I brought her after I went to Knitting Camp), and Elemental Affects Shetland.

(Imagine a springy chartreuse rather than that dull yellow, will you? The other colors are accurate.) Here it is on Ravelry if you want to keep track of my progress. I am juggling it with three other holiday gift knits, but I’m feeling strong for a timely finish, even given the STEEKING that has to happen and the MANY, MANY ENDS I’ll need to weave in. (Note to self: For the love of Pete, girl, give that spit-splicing method a try.) I’m already at the V-neck shaping, and the armscyes are coming along in just a few rounds.

Mods: Those among you who have already knit this vest will notice there’s an extra large-pattern band in there. K & I thought the version in the magazine looked suspiciously cropped, and we’re both fans of that comfortable overlap of sweater and jeans that prevents cold drafts and peeping eyes from finding one’s upper bum, should one choose to bend over. Thus I’ve lengthened K’s vest by casting on the next-largest size and working an extra peerie and an extra large band, while decreasing at the rate directed down to a stitch count that would give me the desired waist size. Then I was back on track to proceed with the bust increases for the target size.

Once in a while, along comes a project that exceeds all your expectations and strikes a tuning fork of joy in your soul. Sometimes this bliss extends only through the crafting process and the finished product doesn’t quite fit, or doesn’t hold up to wear. Other times, it’s just perfect all around. This is one of those times.

This is the Teeswater wool sock yarn from Shaggy Bear Farms of Scio, Oregon (via the Farm Series at A Verb for Keeping Warm) that I’ve been prattling on about to anyone who’d listen. AVfKW has five more skeins from the lovely ewe, Elise, who so kindly grew the fleece that became these socks, and it’s all I can do not to snap them up right now. I really mustn’t, because I just spent loads of dough signing up for the Madrona Winter Retreat, but they’re very tempting. (I’m excited about my Madrona classes, by the way. I’ll be improving my drop spindling on Saturday morning with Amelia Garripoli, knitting for speed & efficiency with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee that afternoon, and then knitting happily ever after with Carson Demers on Sunday afternoon. See you there?)

And this is the Arch-Shaped Stocking pattern from Schoolhouse Press, a sextet of patterns (including colorwork versions) created by Meg Swansen after she reverse-engineered the original sock her mother knit with this clever foot shaping. Mine is the Fishbone Cable version with twisted rib.

I’ve been wearing these socks for two weeks now and can happily say that they’re the most comfortable pair I’ve knit. I love the architecture of the foot, especially the way the twisted rib along the sole looks like lapstraking on the prow of a boat. Yay socks.

Time to punt that dreary photo down the page a bit. Alas, not with a new photo of my arch-shaped socks, which I adore and have already worn five or seven times. It’s still drizzly. Last night we had high winds, which are supposed to usher in a week of… more rain. Not to mention forty thousand more wet leaves to rake. Ah well. I made more pumpkin-apple soup, and we all know this is ideal knitting weather. On my friend Katherine’s recommendation, I ordered up some Georgette Heyer on tape from the library. Often I watch movies while knitting, but with three kinds of colorwork —the Ivy League vest for Katrin, Mom’s Three and One cardigan, and my brother’s Mad Argyle — competing for my time, I need to do more peering at my fingertips than usual. Katherine described Georgette Heyer as “Jane Austen Lite” — sounds like perfect knitting ambiance to me.

However, when I went to hunt for the five or six titles she’d recommended, it became apparent that my beloved library is a little behind the times: they have many of Heyer’s novels on tape, but only one was available on CD. Happily it was False Colours, which was on Katherine’s list. The only tape deck we have is in the car, and I don’t believe I want to move my gift-knitting operation out to the driveway. I’d probably kill the battery, for one. Also the light is very poor after dark. Although if I had taken my CD and knitting out there last night, I’d have noticed that we’d forgotten Mr. G’s cell phone in the car… and I might have remembered to lock the doors, thus preventing a prowling burglar from pinching the phone. Ouch. That was an expensive lesson in being forgetful + too trusting of general human decency. Our burglar didn’t take the tape deck, funnily enough, and apparently didn’t think much of our taste in music. We’re fortunate he or she wasn’t interested in stealing the car registration for identity theft. Just after easy pickings, I guess. Sigh.

I can’t help a little wry smile, despite being awfully sorry to have cost my husband this frustration, inconvenience, and expense. One of my favorite stories about my young cousin Sam is from when he was in preschool, and all the children were singing a precious little song about “May there always be…” with each kiddo to offer up something he hoped would endure forever. By the time they got to Sammie, they’d sung all kinds of things: “May there always be puppies, may there always be rainbows, may there always be grandmas, etc.” Sam’s contribution was, “May there always be BURGLARS!”