Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Claire's Gloves: Continuing to Explore

There's been a lot of exploration here, both mental and physical, in the last 24 hours. Where to start? Well, first off, I'm really pleased with the fit of the hand portion of my glove, but the design needs a bit more "oomph" overall. I'm rather intrigued by these "Gunnister Gloves", from late 17th-century Scotland. What you see is a reproduction of gloves excavated from a bog. They are simple, but incredibly stylish. I really love the tapered gauntlet cuff, and so the next step I intend to take is to see what happens if I incorporate that feature into my own design. I won't need to knit an entire glove, just the cuff, so playing with this won't take very long.
Today I made a trip to a yarn shop and had another look at some choices. To be honest, if I had easy access to Quince & Co's "Chickadee", I have a feeling that that would be the perfect wool. I want something in a soft neutral, something close to natural sheep colours, but not cream (do you have any idea how quickly gloves get dirty?) Here are some choices:
1. This is a soft dove grey (as in mourning dove colour)--grey with a slightly taupy undertone.


2. This is a cool beige. BTW, Sublime's "Cashmere Merino Silk dk" has become "Baby Cashmere Merino Silk dk", although it is still available in a great range of adult colours. This one is "Pebble".


Here are the two colours side by side for comparison. Any thoughts?


Note that both of these yarn choices are non-superwash. I prefer that since so many superwash wools grow unpredictably when wet.
3. There's a third possibility that is superwash, shown below.


This is a pale, heather grey, with a much more unprocessed look. Don't know if I want that or not. Don't know how it will behave when firmly knitted and wet blocked. Maybe I'll play with it, even if just for future reference.
I brought another little goodie home. This has been known to happen when one visits yarn shops.


There's such a lovely antique feel to this colourway I couldn't resist. Needless to say, this is for socks, not my glove project!