The great thing about this “pattern”, not really a pattern as such, more ideas, is that it's so individual, unusual and great fun to do! They're designed to look cobwebby and have a great deconstructed style, plus, you get to deliberately drop stitches!
You'll need some very very thin, preferably stretchy or elasticated, yarn.
6mm and 8mm needles or some other large needles. If you don't have these you can make the gloves with dpns, but I found that with the loose stitches and large needles they became tangled too often.
My gloves are asymmetrical, one is messier than the other, as I wanted to make it look like they were very old and worn, but you can make both gloves the same if you want to, the only real difference is the way they fit over your hand
Messier glove
For this glove, cast on 25 stitches very loosely on the 6mm needles and work in stocking stitch until the glove is about the length of your hand. Now comes the fun part. Knit four to six stitches as you like, then drop the next stitch and tease the two needles apart a little, so that a “ladder” effect works down to the first row. This will allow for your thumb. Work the rest of that row.
On the next row, do the same, to allow for your little finger, and work to the stitch you dropped previously. Over this stitch, ad a yarn over, which will give you the same number of stitches as you started with and allow the ladder more room to be bigger. On the next row, do the same yarn over when you reach the next stitch you dropped.
And that's your hand done.
Neater glove
The hand on this glove is much neater: Cast on three stitches loosely, leaving a long tail on the first stitch. Now on each row you work after this, cast on one stitch on either side, either from casting on or working into the back and front of a stitch, as you see fit. This will give a neat triangle. Carry on like this until you reach 25 stitches. This will cover your hand. The tail you left when you cast on will be used to tie the glove around your middle finger when you finish, by threading the tail through the last stitch (the third) on that first row.
Glove body
The “arm” of the gloves is practically the same, but because the pattern is so loose and experimental, they'll still be slightly different. Basically what you're doing here is working the piece until it reaches the desired length. Mine I wanted to reach to just below my shoulders, so I could leave my tattoo on show. Remember that the piece with stretch when you sew it up and put it on, so make it slightly longer than you want it to allow for this. To make this process more fun to do, I experimented with different patterns and stitches to give a really freestyle, deconstructed look. These patterns and stitches included:
- Yarn overs: these not only leave fun spidery holes, but also ad another stitch to your piece, which is useful as you'll want to have more stitches at the top end of the glove, where your arm is thicker.
- Dropped stitches.
- Controlled dropped stitches: These are a lot of fun, they ad to the deconstructed look without unravelling all the way down to the first row. As you knit, “pick up” a stitch from the stretch of yarn between two stitches. Place a marker by this so you'll be able to spot it. Now continue working as before for a few rows, before dropping that stitch. It will only unravel to the “new” stitch. The number of rows between creating the stitch and dropping it will be the number of “rungs” in the “ladder” it creates.
- “Fishnet” pattern: This is the pattern I used previously in a shawl. Knit 1 then 1yo, k2tog to the end of the row. Doing two or three rows of this in between stocking stitch gives the glove a more obvious “pattern” in the lacey open work.
- Changing needle sizes: Bigger needles create much looser, strange looking stocking stitch. It's also useful to use bigger needles at the top end of your glove, as the work will be stretchier.
Finishing
Once you reach the desired size, cast off. Sew up the gloves loosely, checking they'll fit around your arms. Thread the tail from the beginning of the “neater” glove through the third stitch as already directed, and tie firmly. Now, if you've made long, full length gloves, like mine, you'll want them to stay in place and not slip, and unless you used particularly stretchy yarn! My way of getting around this was to thread to long lengths of yarn through the top of each glove.
These can then be tied to clothing straps, such as bra straps or camisole straps to keep them in place, or if you plan to wear them with something that doesn't have straps, like, say a corset, ask a friend to tie the threads together behind your back, keeping the gloves in place like a shrug.
They're dead easy to make, great fun to knit, great fun to wear! Wear with layers of gauze and fishnet for a raggedy deconstructed look, or with a slinky dress for the ultimate Morticia look!
