The Paperboy and Fingerless Gloves

Friday evening, the doorbell rang. It was the paper boy. He's actually not a boy. He's a grown man who looks sort of homeless. Every year in January, he comes during the evening announcing that he has something to give us from the paper - a gift, it seems. (I think we got a music CD last year.) This is the point at which Fred turns to me and says, "Do you have ten euros?"

The paper boy comes to give us a "gift" and it is our cue to give him a tip. I think last year I was at home alone and all I had was a twenty. Fred gasped as I told him that I'd given it to the guy - and he wasn't impressed with the CD. What was I supposed to do? I was glad I remembered to give him anything at all. It was just by chance that I'd seen Fred give him a tip the first year.

So here these Dutch people are - these people who pride themselves in being straightforward and direct - and they are playing this silly game with the paper boy about pretending to get a "gift" (it was a card this year) in order to see him face to face (he usually arrives before daylight) to give him his tip. Whatever. He probably needs the money. I'm just sayin'...

These Sally gloves I'm making are an absolutely pleasure to knit. I wrote something before about it feeling like an obligation. I think it was the two by two ribbing talking. This wool - Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4ply - is so soft and springy and it looks great knit up. I took these pictures yesterday morning and I'm already about half way up the thumb gusset, so they're a fairly quick knit.


I wanted to do them with magic loop, but I don't have a circular long enough in the right gauge, and my refusal to buy yarn extends to needles unless absolutely necessary. Fortunately, I have four sets of 24 inch, 3 mm circulars - for times like these. But to keep the feeling of doing it on magic loop, I'm doing them a section at at time. There's a repeat every three rows while increasing the thumb gusset. So I just put one down and pick the other up. I really like having them done at the same time - like my last pair of socks. It made my day when those were done at the same time.


Now look at the line between the black wool and the gray. See how beautiful and straight that is? I learned how to do that reading The Sweater Workshop by Jacqueline Fee. When you switch colors while ribbing, you just do a row of knit and then with the new color, then you start the ribbing again. The row of straight knitting is completely undetectable and the line is crisp and clean.

I've got one more pair of these fingerless gloves to knit (the kids love these things) and I think I'm going to use the Knucks pattern from Knitty.com. It starts at the fingers and heads towards the wrists, which might be nice. I'm sort of prejudice in favor of this pattern, but I'm willing to try a new one. I'm also going to make my next pair of socks toe up. Yes, 2008 is going to be some wild, adventurous knitting.

In other news, I frogged almost of foot of a sweater that wasn't working out. I've got other plans for that yarn. It was this same Rowan Yorkshire Tweed 4 Ply and it it wasn't being shown to its advantage. So I ripped it out. That'll show it.