So my best friend, a novice knitter, was up this weekend. She had finished the scarf she’s been working on for a while and wanted a new project, so we rummaged through the books Mom had gotten from the library and dragged out Speed Knitting, which advertised twenty-four quick and easy projects. She wanted something a little more interesting than garter stitch, and we both have computer-intensive office jobs that leave us with cold mouse hands, so we settled on some fingerless gauntlets called Ribby Wrist Warmers. Quick! Easy! A delightful introduction to the joys of dpns and circular knitting! Except that it was Sunday, and the LYS was closed, and Wal-Mart turned up nothing in the way of dpns (though they had a billion crochet hooks: I call lame on that one). So we decided that I’d just chug along with some of Mom’s wooden sock-sized dpns, and she’d knit them flat and sew them up the side, or lace them with ribbons.
The pattern was easy, what I think of as the boyfriend stitch: k1 the first row, k1 p1 the second row, and so on. (In one of our other books, a scarf knit in this pattern is called the Boyfriend Scarf.) At this point, I discovered I’d never taught my friend how to purl, so after a few rows of “Why isn’t this coming out like the photo?”, I remedied that situation. It’s a border, not a mistake. Of course, the way Mom and I purl is apparently freaky and twists the stitch, but my ribbing looks just as good as anyone’s, so fie on that. It’s not wrong: it’s Continental. You keep on wrapping. I’ll be done faster.
I did my gauntlets with the tagends of a couple of skeins of Lamb’s Pride, and if I had to bind off a little earlier than the pattern suggested, it still turned out fine. I wanted to put a little more glam than goth into them, so I did a couple of rows of eyelets between the k1 p1 rows, and then ran pink ribbons through the wrist row of eyelets. I think they’re cute! And they only took a couple of hours, and would have probably taken less time had I not been doing fifteen other things at the time. I wore them most of the day at work today. My boss said I looked like Madonna circa 1986, but my other coworker A offered to pay me for a pair (my second commission ever!), and even Biceps tried them on (and stretched them out with his big old man hands). All in all, a nice diversion for a Sunday afternoon. Not v. impressive, but quite useful, and a good project for a beginner. How about that almost-instant gratification, eh? And for more fun, you could knit them in something chunky, or get really lacy with some mohair and run beads down the back.
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