Yarns: Remaking WW II Fingerless Gloves and Finishing "One Day in December"

 

     My son graduated from an Ecology college in Maine last Spring and stayed there.  He swiftly got a carpentry job for sustainable passive home builders, his dream job.  But sometimes that's a tough job and when one day he was working all day in the cold rain he dreamed of the perfect mitts his mom could knit him.  He wanted fingerless gloves with the fingers exposed to work but the glove itself like his Fisherman Boiled Wool Mitts.  He loves his Boiled Mitts, says they're the best for keeping warm and dry.  I could just imagine the scene.  So he told me this story skyping on Christmas Day and I stayed up past Midnight searching out for what he wanted (some details I will purposefully omit because he's always thinking of being an entrepreneur and develop something to sell and so I won't let all the details out).  Suffice to say he wants fingerless gloves that are boiled wool.

Trigger Gloves

© Namma119

WW II photo of Trigger Gloves

     So I started looking for a pattern for regular sized fingerless gloves, knowing I could use larger needles and get a bigger version to then shrink down to size.  My first hunt uncovered WW II fingerless gloves called Trigger Gloves.  This pattern has been copied from an American Red Cross pattern dated 1940 and does seem the basis of several re-do patterns such as Modified Army Gloves and Men's Fingerless Gloves.  After several (or perhaps lots is a better word) of rip outs, I found the second pattern close (so far) to what I want; we'll see as I progress along if I need to jump around to other patterns.  Because I want to shrink it I'm aiming for knitting one of these patterns, but they all are done, like the WW II one, on # 3 needles.  I found for the worsted yarn I'm using that #6 made a nice fabric, #5 was too tight and I had read that for a boiled wool project you want the fabric a bit loose.  So I also found this really beautiful pattern for Boiled Wool Fingerless gloves called Digits.  They are also similar to the WW II pattern, but of course, designed to give you a big fingerless glove to knit and then shrink.  Hers is done on #5, but this made the fabric much too tight.  So I will forge ahead.  Constantly I imagine my son's cold fingers and I want these done soon.  

        

KnitPicks Simply Wool Worsted

     These first fingerless gloves I imagine are the testers.  I choose Worsted wool so I'd have flexible fingers and Patons Wool because I had the skein on hand.  Optimally I'd like to use KnitPicks Simply Wool Worsted because I found their Bulky version perfect for the Boiled Fisherman Gloves.  It's a natural, unprocessed wool yarn that I think would appeal to my son because of his background at an Ecology college.  And I also so love the colors!

     I'm a hair from being done with my book "One Day in December" by Josie Silver.  It's definitely going to be up there with my all time favorites and I want to revisit it again, perhaps next December.  The writer has such a perfect and unique way of describing things and the plot is definitely unique!  It could be described as a un-romance.  I mean most of the book the possible couple are missing each other.  Sigh.  Constantly I'm loving the book but also feeling like yelling at it to get them together.  I'm almost at the end, have patience I say, it's worth it.  Laurie the main gal is waiting one December day in a crowded bus in London at a bus stop and she sites this gorgeous guy sitting outside on the bus stop bench.  He looks at her and it's love at first sight, but no one moves.  She searches for a year with her best friend and roommate to find him, but he's nowhere.  Until she meets her roommate's new amazing boyfriend.  Yup, it's him and she doesn't tell her best friend.  The rest of the book covers 10 years, but it's at times funny, definitely engaging and I love every page.  I'm ready to turn to the first page again.  Really lovely.

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