Yes, I know, I am supposed to either be knitting my jumper or making my Christmas presents. But another one of my purchases from the Knit and Stitch show was Woodland knits, which is full of very cute patterns (most of which I am unlikely to ever make as they are a little too quirky even for me, but at half price who could resist?). So instead of pressing on with my Christmas list I decided to make the catching butterflies fingerless gloves for myself - it is getting cold after all, and doesn't every girl need a new pair of fingerless gloves per winter? They are just too cute to resist! And in my head I figured it might be best to test-drive the pattern for myself before making it for someone else.
The glove body pattern is fairly simple to follow and involves some cabling to produce what I imagine is meant to look like little butterflies. Really, they just look like Vs, but with a little imagination I guess the lines could be perceived as butterflies. The actual butterflies are then knit separately, made more butterfly-like with the addition of a body (I wasn't entirely sure what I was meant to use for that so just used some thread. The small ones are then stitched on the front and the big ones on the palm of the hand.
The pattern suggests using 2.75mm needles for the rib and 3.25mm needles for the body, but I only have 3mm ones so I used them and it worked out just fine. Although this is for my hands, which are pretty small - I think they would just not fit someone with slightly bigger hands, so you might need to experiment a little with needle size. Similarly, for the butterfly the pattern called for 2.25mm needles but I only have 2.5mm ones, and to be honest I doubt it really matters!
As for the yarn, I went for Debbie Bliss Rialto 4-ply, which is very soft and shiny, and thus has very good stitch definition. The butterflies are made with Rowan kidsilk haze.
The butterflies have caught the light very strangely in those photos and look very fuzzy. They are in fact pretty fuzzy (although not to that extent), but I think that is the idea given the use of kidsilk haze. I did consider not forking out the money for it given that the pattern only uses a teeny amount but I wondered whether the effect would not be quite so pretty. In hindsight, another very thin yarn might have worked out well enough too, and perhaps they would have looked a little less like bows and more like butterflies? The kidsilk haze is quite difficult to work with anyway, and so they were a little fiddly, especially when trying to add the body. So the small ones in particular look quite wonky, and I am not sure how happy I am with them.
Fuzzy butterflies aside, I am pleased with them and I do think they look pretty. If I were to make them again (another Christmas gift in theory), I would probably make the body shorter (so do two instead of three pattern repeats before starting on the thumb) as I am not sure it is necessary, and instead make the top a little longer (perhaps by adding half a pattern repeat) to make them warmer - as you can see, the top stop quite close to the bottom of the fingers, so there is very little coverage.
Ok, back to that Christmas list!
Raverly link
The glove body pattern is fairly simple to follow and involves some cabling to produce what I imagine is meant to look like little butterflies. Really, they just look like Vs, but with a little imagination I guess the lines could be perceived as butterflies. The actual butterflies are then knit separately, made more butterfly-like with the addition of a body (I wasn't entirely sure what I was meant to use for that so just used some thread. The small ones are then stitched on the front and the big ones on the palm of the hand.
The pattern suggests using 2.75mm needles for the rib and 3.25mm needles for the body, but I only have 3mm ones so I used them and it worked out just fine. Although this is for my hands, which are pretty small - I think they would just not fit someone with slightly bigger hands, so you might need to experiment a little with needle size. Similarly, for the butterfly the pattern called for 2.25mm needles but I only have 2.5mm ones, and to be honest I doubt it really matters!
As for the yarn, I went for Debbie Bliss Rialto 4-ply, which is very soft and shiny, and thus has very good stitch definition. The butterflies are made with Rowan kidsilk haze.
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| The front, with tiny butterflies attached |
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| The back, with big butterflies attached |
.jpeg) |
| Slightly clearer image, in which the butterfly is more defined. |
Fuzzy butterflies aside, I am pleased with them and I do think they look pretty. If I were to make them again (another Christmas gift in theory), I would probably make the body shorter (so do two instead of three pattern repeats before starting on the thumb) as I am not sure it is necessary, and instead make the top a little longer (perhaps by adding half a pattern repeat) to make them warmer - as you can see, the top stop quite close to the bottom of the fingers, so there is very little coverage.
Ok, back to that Christmas list!
Raverly link
They look amazing tho
ReplyDeleteThank you :)
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