The Zen Leaf

I’ve moved to northern Wisconsin, and I have way too much yarn. It only makes sense that I create tons and tons of winter accessories to wear! Today’s post features gloves and socks that I’ve crocheted over the last few months.

I’m a huge fan of fingerless gloves, and One Skein Wonders (my go-to book for patterns right now) has five different patterns for them! These are the first I made, actually for a friend of mine whose birthday was back in August. I tried them on to make sure they fit a hand properly – it was my first real experience with sewing to join, rather than joining with a crochet stitch – and I loved them so much that I made myself an identical pair later on! [Yarn: Premier Yarns Deborah Norville Serenity Sock Weight in Burgundy]

Next up was some thick fingerless gloves, or a pattern known as “wristlets” in One Skein Wonders (ha!). I made them longer than the pattern called for, and played around with mismatching buttons for the fakey cuffs. Loved the way they came out, especially as they match my newest coffee mug, heh. Plus the yarn is the same used in my quinby hat so I have coordinating accessories! These are extremely warm and will be perfect for this winter! [Yarn: Lion’s Pride Woolspun in Claret and Linen]

Fingerless gloves #3 (also from OSW) feature a shell pattern and a buttoned cuff. Honestly, I think this pattern was misprinted. It features size 1 yarn with a 3.25-mm hook (normal) and says that the pattern will require 198 yards of yarn. The gauge indicates a much larger size per stitch than it’s possible to achieve with this hook and yarn size (like three times too large!). When I tried to make these with that size of hook, these gloves might have fit a toddler. Maybe. Even moving up to a 3.75-mm hook and stitching loosely, the glove is about preteen-sized and very stretched at that (picture in book has very tight stitches). My very tiny son is modeling them here. I can get them on, but the cuff-button is about an inch too wide to actually fasten, and I don’t exactly have giant wrists. Plus, even with the larger hook size and loosely stitching, I used up maybe 100 yards of yarn, max. It’s a neat pattern, but I think I’ll try it again with a size 3 yarn and a larger hook so that I can make a pair to fit an adult hand! [Yarn: Patons Kroy Socks in Sing’n the Blues Stripes]

Technically, socks aren’t gloves, but they’re kinda like foot-gloves, and they’re the only foot-wear I made over the last few months, so I’m sticking them in this post! These are yoga socks, pattern from Expression Fiber Arts, modified as usual to fit. The original pattern is supposed to fit women’s shoe size 3 to 9, and I’m size 8, but this pattern was way too small for my feet. I left the number of foot-rows the same, because I don’t like the socks to go all the way to the toes like the pattern shows, and then I had to add another set of shells to the ankle/cuff section to get them to fit properly. Fun pattern, but definitely needs tweaking if you have average-sized feet. [Yarn: Patons Kroy Socks in Sing’n the Blues Stripes]

These arm warmers/fingerless gloves come from Crochet That Fits. The book is subtitled Shaped Fashions Without Increases or Decreases – and that’s essentially both what I liked and didn’t like about this particular pattern. On the one hand, the book encourages changing the pattern to fit you. I made these shorter (instead of going all the way to my elbows, which I don’t particularly like) and wider (because I like a looser fit on my arm). Because there are no increases or decreases, though, there’s a LOT of extra space around my wrist, so they’re quite floppy in one section, while snug around my forearm and the widest part of my hand. Increasing and decreasing isn’t that difficult, so I would have preferred to just do that! However, they’re cozy and I like fingerless gloves, so I’ll still keep them around for this winter! [Yarn: Caron Simply Soft Camo in Woodland]

After making some Key Tab Fingerless Gloves (Calleigh’s Clips & Crochet Creations) for my sister-in-law last month, I knew I needed a pair for myself. I got one of my favorite yarns – the picture doesn’t do the colors justice – and modified the pattern a bit to lengthen the gloves down my arms. They’re so soft and cuddly that I’ve been wearing them whenever I get the slightest bit chilled! [Yarn: Caron Simply Soft Paints in Peacock Feather]

Last up: Is it obvious by now just how much I love fingerless gloves? This is pattern #4 from One Skein Wonders, called “Astra” gloves (whatever that means?). By now, however, I’ve discovered something very important about myself: I despise working with superfine (size 1) yarn. I thought perhaps I’d try something a little different with this one, using two strands of superfine yarn together with the same sized hook the pattern called for. I’d feel out the pattern size (it had instructions for child, average woman, and average man hand size) and see what I thought. I preferred the double strand a thousand times over! Because of the double-size of the yarn, I ended up using the instructions for the child-sized gloves, but that worked out perfectly fine for me. Snug, soft, exactly the right size, and I like the mottle of two colors together as well! These have become my default going-to-sleep gloves on super-cold nights, they’re that soft! [Yarn: Loops & Threads Woolike in Purple and Navy]

So that’s it for gloves! I’m sure I’ll make a few more variations of a few of these in different colors, and I might eventually try the complicated fifth fingerless glove pattern in One Skein Wonders (with individual fingers!). For now, though, this’ll be a great autumn/winter stockpile!