Thursday, July 17, 2008

Pomatomus gloves: Instructions for hand extension and fingers

These were requested on Ravelry, so here they are for your knitting pleasure. Instructions begin just after completion of the thumb gusset. You should have placed the 21 thumb gusset stitches on waste yarn, closed the remaining hand stitches to round, and finished working the 4th pattern repeat before diving into the instructions in this post.




To start the pinky before the remaining fingers for a better fit, work 5 (not 11) rows of the 5th repeat. Then start the pinky as follows:

Pinky:
Rib 5 sts from palm, co 7, rib 8 sts from back = 20 sts
rib 24 rds, then work fingertip as follows:

cddr = centred double decrease over ribbing: sl 1 (a knit st), p 1, pass next knit st on left needle over just-purled st, pass slipped knit st over purled st

rd 25: p1, cddr, rib 3, cddr, rib 3, cddr, rib 4 = 14 sts
rd 26: rib 3, cddr, rib 3, cddr, rib 2 = 10 sts
rd 27: p1, cddr, p1, cddr, rib 2 = 6 sts
graft off

Hand extension
m2 on palm side to rt of held sts, k held sts in patt, pick up 7 out of the 7 sts cast on between palm and back sts of pinky finger = 68 sts. Place marker 6 sts before end of rd.
Next rd: work in patt.
Next 4 rds: work in patt; in each rd k tog the 2 sts after the marker = 64 sts

Ring finger:
Rib 9 sts from palm, co 3, 14 from back = 26 sts
rib 31 rds, then work fingertip as follows:
rd 32: rib 6, cddr, p1, cddr, rib 7, cddr, p1, cddr = 18 sts
rd 33: rib 3, cddr, p1, cddr, rib 3, cddr, p1, cddr = 10 sts
rd 34: p1, cddr, p3, cddr = 6 sts
rib 2, graft off

Middle finger:
Rib 9 sts from palm, co 5, rib 11 from back, pick up 3 from side of ring finger = 28 sts
rib 39 rds
rd 40: rib 9, cddr, p1, cddr, rib 7, cddr, p1, cddr = 20 sts
rd 41: rib 5, cddr, p1, cddr, rib 3, cddr, p1, cddr = 12 sts
rd 42: rib 2 cddr, rib 3, cddr = 8 sts
graft off

Index finger:
Rib 9 from palm, rib 12 from back, pick up 7 from side of middle finger = 28 sts
rib 31 rds
rd 32: rib 6, cddr, p1, cddr, rib 7, cddr, p1, cddr = 20 sts
rd 33: rib 4, cddr, p1, cddr, rib 3, cddr, p1, cddr = 12 sts
rd 34: rib 3, cddr, rib 3, cddr, = 8 sts
rib 3, graft off

Thumb:
k 21 held sts from thumb gusset, pick up 7 sts to close rd = 28 sts
rib 28 rds
rd 29: rib 2, cddr, p1, cddr, rib 9, cddr, p1, cddr = 20 sts
rd 30: cddr, p1, cddr, rib 5, cddr, p1, cddr, p1 = 12 sts
rd 31: cddr, p5, cddr, p1 = 8 sts
rib 1, graft off

Note: It's been a while since I finished the gloves, and the information for shaping the fingertips is given as best I can remember it; there may be inaccuracies, there may be typos (please do let me know if you find any such), and you may have to improvise a bit, but I think that I've remembered enough of it to give you a general idea of how to work the decreases over ribbing. Also, you may find that, to finish a decreasing rd as indicated here, you need cheat and include the first st of the following rd as well; this didn't create any problems for me while I was working the fingers.