Top Down Gloves

I probably shouldn't have used dark brown yarn for the photos of the Joyce Williams' glove technique from her book Latvian Dreams. Oh well. Above is a photo taken after the fingers are joined.

To begin you knit the fingers top-down on two circs. Leave the bottom stitches live on waste yarn and mark each finger so you don't get them mixed up.



Next you transfer the front half of the stitches of each finger to one circ and the back half of the stitches of each finger to the other circ. (This differs from the usual method of knitting top-down gloves where you would leave the stitches in between each finger on waste yarn and use kitchener stitch to join the fingers together later.) Make sure the fingers are in the right order as it is pretty easy to get them mixed up.

Now here comes the interesting part. You knit across all three fingers but when you get to the area where two fingers meet on the inner edge of each finger, you put one stitch on a coilless safety pin to be knit on the other side and continue knitting across. On the second half of the stitches (the other circ) you pick up and knit those stitches on the coilless safety pin and put more stitches on the coilless safety pins to be picked up on the other side. Essentially what you are doing is transferring stitches from the front of the glove to the back and vice versa where the fingers meet.

Initially I thought this would mean that the circumference around the base of the fingers would end up really tight but the fingers felt fine to me. It really is a clever way of omitting potential holes (from large or loose stitches) between the fingers for top-down glove knitters. Thanks to Jennifer from the comments for her enthusiastic recommendation of this method.

The two glove patterns are done and now I'm just re-knitting them to try to avoid any errors and to add some sizes. I'll have a photo of the second glove tomorrow or Tuesday. The technique section of the booklet is finished except for a final edit and my big project for this week is to try to get as many photos and scans as possible.

Knitting Top Down Gloves, Part Two

Once the pre-knit thumb is added to the knitting (about 2 inches from the base of the little finger), I did decreases to each edge of the original thumb stitches - SSK on the right side and K2TOG on the left - to form the thumb gusset.



This shows the kitchener stitch used to attach the stitches between each finger. This is one of those moments when you will be really glad to have shorter (5" or less) dpns.



To omit the holes that were formed on each side of the kitchener stitched finger interiors, I flipped the glove and then threaded a needle with yarn. (I used a contrasting yarn for the photo but of course would use matching yarn for the actual glove.) I used the tapestry needle to go around the hole and grab all the backs of stitches that are perpendicular to the yarns moving around the hole. (I'll get a better photo for the booklet.) Pull tight and the hole will disappear.




For this glove I used an excellent reference article called "Knitting Gloves from the Top Down" by Dorothy T. Ratigan in the Fall 1996 issue of Interweave Knits. She includes some good advice on how to measure your hands.

Meg Swansen has a pattern for top-down gloves using I-cord for the fingers in the book Handknitting with Meg Swansen - there is also a video with this pattern at Schoolhouse Press (scroll down).

Joyce Williams has a top down glove pattern in her beautiful book Latvian Dreams. Her method apparently includes an unusual technique where no extra stitches are picked up between the glove fingers and is great for knitters who hate dealing with holes between the fingers. Has anyone used this method? I'm curious how limited the finger movement is on these gloves.

Anna Zilboorg's Magnificent Mittens are all knit top-down and she includes a pattern for mittens with a separate index finger. Interestingly she admits they are fussier to make than she enjoys but "glove knitters, however, should find them no trouble".

One of the most fascinating glove patterns of all time is Beverly Royce's Tip-to-Cuff Two Needle Gloves in Homespun Handknit. These gloves are knit tubular top-down on two needles using double knitting. Not only that, they are done in a stranded color knitting pattern! I plan to knit these gloves next.

Finally, Nonaknits has a great free online pattern (scroll down) for top down gloves using I-cord fingers and the Joyce Williams in between the fingers method.