Very wooly hand warmers

This week I have been making our hand warmer pattern in Treskogarn, a marled light weight double knitting yarn with a somewhat rough wooly texture. Working it reminds me of having a smoked gouda cheese and parma ham sandwich made with artisan whole grain bread as opposed to Laughing Cow light cream cheese on a white baguette. Before blocking the knitting is curled.

The reason for using a such a character? Sturdy is perfect for the great outdoors. The fabric wears well for late fall bike rides, since weather is more of a challenge.  I'm confident this project will add the right tough, encouraging  warm layer over my leather gloves. I needn't use the wet linen cloth for this yarn, it can handle full on steam and iron. I actually put a bit of pressure on the stocking stitch, shots of steam only on the two by two ribbing.

For the purpose of pictoral clarity I will sew up the seam with my pet pink waste yarn. After the photo shoot, I replace the pink with the self yarn daedally bits I purposly left at the beginning and ending corners of the knitting. It is really more like lacing up a corset or shoe than sewing. The piece on the right shows after I pull the lacing snug, were it the self yarn it would be invisible.

My usual practice is to leave only an inch or two of yarn at the beginning, but sometimes for small projects like toys or flowers I leave enough to sew the parts in place in their self colour. I find this technique works well for the very short seam on hand warmers.

I like to leave a 6 ridge opening for the thumb of the glove. The seam is visible, and very flat so ok
with me. It is quite convenient to knit them flat, and a fun project for a new knitter...cast on, rib, stocking stitch, moss stitch, cast off, sewing up...all the most fundamental techniques.

Knitting at a relaxed pace I make about one an evening. Two evenings and a Christmas gift is fait accompli!