« The email machine is currently working and other news. | Main | From their bumpers to your ears. »

March 03, 2009

My hands are officially warmed.

Really, the hardest thing about making armwarmers is the part where you try to take a picture of your own arm to show off your HANDiwork:

Hello! Weird stilted pose taken with other arm, upside down. Also known as "Still life with stilted arm."

I am officially totally and completely addicted to making handwarmer-armwarmer thingies. This is the natural evolution of the scarf! It's one little rectangle seamed up with a hole left in the side for your thumb to poke through.

I made these gorgeous multicolored long-length armwarmers while I was traveling (nothing is better than spending hours uninterrupted just knitting ... nowhere to be, no phone calls to make, no internet, no mail, no to-do list ... just you trapped on an airplane, knitting and listening to your ipod. That is my idea of heaven.)

I used two skeins of Noro Silk Garden in color #13 (pinks, greys and browns with purple, too) and I made two sets of armwarmers from all that yarn. You can very easily make one single set of long armwarmers from just one skein but I used two skeins because I wanted my long armwarmers to be the exact same striping pattern. I can be picky that way. With Noro, I find sometimes it's easier to knit from two skeins so you can start each project (like two identical armwarmers) on the same color.

These were knit on size 7 needles. For finishing, I didn't use any fancy shmancy knitting technique for the seam, I just sewed up the sides and tied the yarn off and then weaved the ends in.

Long-ish armwarmers in 2x2 ribbing

1 skein Noro Silk Garden Lite
1 set size 7 straight needles
One large-eye yarn needle for seaming

Cast on 40 stitches loosely. If you need to, cast on using a size 8 needle to get a loose cast-on edge.

Work in a knit 2, purl 2 ribbing for the entire piece. My armwarmers are about 12 inches long. Cast off, leaving a long yarn tail (you can use it for seaming.)

Thread yarn through a large-eye yarn needle and sew up the sides lengthwise, leaving a 1.5 inch opening for the thumb (or less if you want.)

I used the leftover yarn in each skein to create another set, a shorter set of handwarmers that are brown with pink and purple on the edges. And I tried two different versions of ribbing, my long armwarmers are a smaller rib and the handwarmers are a wider rib. I like them both!

The handwarmers are shorter in length and I left a smaller hole for the thumb, since these are the ones I plan to use for making a thumb gusset. For now, though, these are just simple as pie! I didn't measure the gauge because I think ribbing is hard to measure correctly. My hands are pretty big and my friend Corey has super-small hands, and these fit us both because ribbing is so giving, so I think you'll be fine knitting these without a gauge to go by.

The one on the left is the handwarmer before being sewn up, the one on the right is already seamed together.

Handwarmers in 4x4 ribbing

1 skein Noro Silk Garden Lite
1 set size 7 straight needles
One large-eye yarn needle for seaming

Cast on 40 stitches loosely. If you need to, cast on using a size 8 needle to get a loose cast-on edge.

Work in a knit 4, purl 4 ribbing for the entire piece. My handwarmers are about 8 inches long. Cast off, leaving a long yarn tail (you can use it for seaming.)

Thread yarn through a large-eye yarn needle and sew up the sides lengthwise, leaving a 1.5 inch opening for the thumb (or less if you want.)

Voila! Wear and be warmed.

Posted by laurie at March 3, 2009 07:52 AM