"Woven" Warmth

Spring is well and truly here, but I'm still in winter-crafting mode. The chilly rains and dreary skies have me searching for projects that are warm, but not quite dead-of-winter-knits warm.

Which is to say, now is the perfect time to turn to thinks like fingerless gloves! I get cold fingers at the drop of a hat, so having a variety of hand coverings gets me all the way from October to April. I broke out some of my pattern books and found a prime candidate from Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders. The pattern? "Woven" Fingerless Gloves by Laura Hein Eckel. They looked super cute, and quite easy. Exactly what I needed for some relaxing knitting after a busy day.

There was one problem I didn't consider though. I had no free sock yarn to make these mitts with. Everything I had was either reserved for another project, or too little to make two gloves with (and I did need two of them). I did have dk weight though...

It's not something I would recommend for a first or second project, but if you have a few projects under your belt, you can modify patterns for slightly different weights of yarn. Sometimes all it takes is moving up or down a few needle/hook sizes: check your gauge and see where you are.

If you can't get gauge with your new yarn, fear not. Measure what gauge you do have. With the power of math and this measurement, you can still make patterns work! The trick is to find the major measurements of the pattern, and adjust the number of stitches to match. Sometimes, patterns will tell you what these measurements are. A hat pattern might tell you that the circumference at the brim is 20 inches. How many stitches do you need then? Take your gauge, in the form of "X stitches per inch", and multiply it by the number of inches wide you need your piece to be. There's the answer! As long as you follow the major measurements (in both length and width), you should get the right shape. Lace, cable, and colorwork designs may need to be modified to reflect the new stitch count, but a strategic repeat added or removed usually takes care of the problem. Less shaped items (like hats, scarves, and fingerless mittens) are easier to modify than more complicated ones, of course, but with some trial and error you can modify almost every pattern.

(As a side note, please make your gauge swatch more than an inch long. The longer it is, the more accurate your assessment of gauge will be. Dividing the number of stitches in the row by the length of the row gives you the measurement of "stitches per inch".)

Well, that was a roundabout way to explain how I used DK yarn for a sock yarn pattern. The results turned out quite well I think!