Just embarked upon the gorgeous Galewood Gauntlets, by Honor Adams. Some will be dismayed by the fact that this pattern is only available in Pom Pom Magazine #27 but to this we say: Think again! This Newbee splurged on the magazine for the cover story — the utterly insane Nightingale, by Norah Gaughan — only to flip a few pages to discover Galewood, which had to be knit RIGHT NOW. (All of the patterns in this issue are worth owning, even if only a few will actually be knit. It’s a definite keeper in our very choicefully stocked knitting library. Even non-knitters are grabbing this off my desk to hold and admire.)
For this, we've chosen Wishbone Flax Flower, a yarn that is an inspiration unto itself. Dark green is Newbee Knitters' current obsession, so when a friend asked us to knit her up a pair of fingerless “mitts” in any shade of green, we took it as a sign to throw down the gauntlet. Or more literally, pick it up. Wishbone delivers in both color and texture (this Newbee Knitter is not a flax fan, typically, but flax flower may yet turn me) though it is a bit splitty. Still, we are loving the overall effect of this yarn and knit together.
Pattern-wise, this is well written (errata here) and easy to follow — once you are past the set ups. It’s not that the set up is hard, it’s just a wee bit unintuitive at times, like casting off in the middle of the row to set up the cable braid. Would have liked a bit more explanation there as to why, but we are context knitters. Others did not note this about the pattern. So, we knit on.
We at Newbee Knitters always (wink) take the time to swatch and block, and after looking at some of the FO, we strongly recommend being mindful of gauge. As with anything this delicate, this pattern can look very different when constructed off gauge.
Here is the right gauntlet at a little less than halfway. Note the cast off section in the lower left image. So this gets swooped back up at the end, as a twist, and ends up holding the unraveled (5) purl stitches above it, making the braid.
Will post the finished pair once completed!