Spun Singles: Biomorphic Lace Gloves

It’s been a goal of mine this year to make one project per month (aside from Tour de Fleece when there’s already a lot going on). I have a long list of projects I want to make, many of which have been put on the backburner over the past few years, and quite a bit of yarn and fabric from my early days of blogging waiting to be turned into something, so focusing on one a month seem a logical way to work through things. So far I’ve been managing well, however life has habbit of upending the best laid plans and I ended up with a spontaneous sewing project (blog post to follow later this year) alongside other committments, leaving me with very little time to work on a project for this month.

I needed something quick and easy that was unlikely to go wrong; unfortunately that excluded all the projects on my list! I’d also started to think about prepping for Tour de Fleece (clearing bobbins and spindles etc.) and had a spindle full of zwartbles I’d spun as a single during some recent demo’s. Initially I was going to ply it and add it to my stash, but I began to wonder if I could do something with it as is (particularly since I used it to illustrate how to spin thicker and thinner yarn, so it wasn’t the most even). Lace knitting is usually the go-to for spun singles, and I began to think of the fishnet gloves I used to wear in dance costumes in my youth. After browsing the internet and my knitting books for inspiration nothing was calling out to me, and actual fishnet was too regimental for what I was imagining, so I began to wonder what it would look like if I just made my own pattern up.

There was a bit of trial and error in the process with a few frogged samples at the cast on stage, however the basic construction of the glove was simple and could be done in any type of stitch. Using needles slightly larger than what would normally suit the yarn, I cast on the number of stitches that would comfortably fit around my forearm at the elbow and knitted a couple of rows K1,P1 rib to give some structure before the lace pattern began. Since lace looks best when stretched out, I ended up taking out some stitches from the initial samples to avoid it being baggy. Then I knitted in the round until I had a tube that reached my wrist, randomly decreasing stitches and adding yarn overs to replace those lost so the stitch count stayed the same for every round.

I’ve never had a problem with laddering when using DPN’s (though am always mindful of it), but I realised early on that if I let the join between each pair of DPN’s hang loosely this would create another interesting lacey effect. I moved the DPN joins around every so often to avoid having any regimented sections running the length of the glove.

When I got to the wrist I had to decide what I was going to do about shaping the hand. I like the aesthetic of the fishnet gloves which have a hole for the thumb and fifth finger, however since I plan to wear these when demo-ing I realised that having fabric on the palm of my hand would be more likely to catch on wool and equipment, and potentially restrict my movement. So, the logical option was for me to decrease in a triangle, fastening the tip to the middle finger with a loop. I cast off the back of the wrist using another couple of rib rows, before working back and forth on the remaining stitches in lace pattern, decreasing at either side every so often, making a quick note so I could replicate on the other glove.

At the tip with one stitch remaining, I swapped to a crochet hook and chain stitched a loop long enough to wrap around my middle finger and meet the triangle tip again before securing and casting off. I then set about weaving in my ends (happily for this project there were very few!), before repeating the whole thing for the other glove.

For a project that was cooked up at the last minute with just a loose vision and some yarn, I think they turned out alright. They will be going on to form part of an outfit that I’m creating for demo’s etc. (the rest of which will hopefully be forthcoming later this year), but I think they’re elegant enough that I could probably get away with wearing them to a more formal occasion!

Happy Knitting!