Knitting revisited

You know that feeling when something you think only happened quite recently turns out to be far older? I had that this week. It's been horribly cold here in the UK, and my Raynaud's has really flared up, so I've been wearing my trusty wrist warmers. I thought that they were a couple of years old, but it turns out that I made them in January 2018, so a whole seven years ago!

My third project, so long ago

Anyway, useful though they are, there are a couple of things which get slightly irritating with prolonged use. They are quite long on me, so they get in the way with full-length, close-fitting, sleeves. Because they are just knitted in stocking stitch, they tend to roll at the ends, which causes even more problems with sleeves. And the simple funnel shape means that if I wear them low down my hand, they act like webbing between my thumb and forefinger, which is a nuisance, but if I wear them pushed up then more of my hand is exposed.

Brrrr

None of this is at all the fault of the pattern, which is designed specifically for a beginner knitter. But my knitting has improved over seven years, and I reckoned that with a few tweaks I could make the design work better for me.

In the original, both warmers are knitted identically, and the only difference is where the top edge is sewn together to create the thumb hole.

The original pair before sewing up

I decided to knit a left and a right, by splitting the shape along the line of one set of eyelets so that there were separate thumb and finger sections. I also shortened the pattern, and added ribbing at the top and bottom to stop curling. Completist that I am, I even knitted the initial central column of eyelets to mirror one another; 'yo, k2tog' for one, and 'k2tog, yo' for the other.

The difference is barely visible, but it makes me happy!

My first draft of the amended pattern was surprising accurate for a beginner, and I only had to make a couple of changes as I went along.

The new pair before sewing up

The end result was better than I had dared hope. The length is just right, and I get plenty of hand coverage without losing thumb movement.

All boxes ticked

The versions side by side

Needless to say, the weather started to get warmer just as I was finishing them, but I'm sure they will still get well-used. The project has also boosted my confidence in how well I understand knitting patterns and how I can adjust them. I'm still a long way off the competence I have with sewing patterns, but it's definitely a start.