I’d bookmarked a post showing a free pattern for crocheted fingerless gloves and finally got around to making them.
I’m an internet addict and spend hours every day online. I also live in Phoenix and love working outside on my back patio all year. When you live in the desert your blood thins in the extreme temperatures we see in the summer (or so I’ve been told) which makes us more susceptible to feeling cold even in mild weather.
With our temps now dipping into the 60s and 70s, I needed something that would keep my hands warm but let me still use my laptop keyboard. These seemed like the ideal solution!
The link to the free pattern can be found on Mooglyblog and the reason I’m linking to that site instead of where you can find the pattern is because it was the Mooglyblog photo of the finished product that first attracted my attention. I also followed their advice for lengthening the cuffs.
To make the cuffs longer it took me a bit to understand that I had to increase the foundation chain instead of the number of rows as the cuff gets turned on its side when you’re done. Instead of chaining 10 I chained 14. My goal was to make them long enough to be sure the bottom of the cuff wouldn’t show under my sweater sleeve if I stretched my arm out.
The first part was easy but I still messed myself up because I didn’t always catch the back loop of the LAST stitch in each row of the cuff. Since you end up working into the end rows of the cuff, that gave me wonky stitches to work with when I got to the hand portion of the pattern.
I kept going anyway and fudged my way through. Doing the cuff was fast enough that I decided to consider this a practice pair and will try again with a focus on those darn last stitches in each row next time. On the second glove in the pair I used a placesaver clip to mark my last stitch in each row so I was sure to get the correct loop with the SC. That helped!
I used Red Heart Soft, worsted weight yarn in Toast. It’s comfortable and still has lots of stretch for the cuffs so there’s a nice, snug fit. (I really wanted to use my white cotton but I’m sure they’d get dirty too fast – maybe for special evenings out, though!) It took about half of the 256 yards for one pair of fingerless gloves.
Having never done any crochet that wasn’t flat – blankets, mats, and wash clothes – I was a little nervous about being able to pull this off but once I got into it and understood the pattern it was very easy. It’s also very forgiving so great for beginners.
The cuff is nothing but rows of single crochet. The hand is a combination of double crochet stitches and there are some slip stitches to piece things together. Despite my little flubs on the cuff, I think they turned out very well!