We'll make our own constellations...

As of last night, I finished my third knitting project! At least, my third successful one. And haven't thrown in the towel on yarncraft yet--this is definitely a record for me!

This time, it's the Constellation Gloves, which was a free project on the Lion Brand website. I liked that they were long, which means no chance of my wrists getting exposed to the cold, and it looked like the perfect project for my chunky-weight yarn that I snagged as soon as I decided to give knitting another go. A good choice for my hands, since they're nice and thick and warm-- I'm looking forward to wearing these to Bible study tonight, since the basement we meet in was really cold last time! (Also, I know this is a bit of a silly picture, but taking pictures of both of your own arms is hard!)

And here's what the whole thing looks like. I had to learn how to do a lot of new things for this one--first time doing ribbing, first time knitting in the round (on both circular and double-pointed needles), I had to bind off and add on stitches up at the top to make the thumb holes, I had to learn to increase....definitely a good skill-building project! I ended up making several changes to the pattern, which surprised me since I'm new at this. Nothing seriously major--things like, since they were ending up too big, I had to go down a needle size from what I'd come up with in the gauge test. The pattern called for making them about 10" long before starting the increases for the hand, but I ended up opting for about 8" instead. (After measuring my arm after I started, I realized that 10" would result in these shoving up against the bend of my elbow, and would probably be rather uncomfortable. Not to mention annoying to deal with for sleeves.) I also ended up making the top shorter than it called for. It wanted a total of 3" above the thumb hole--about 2" for knitting and then the 1" ribbing. I realized that doing so would take this about to my knuckles, which would make them rather non-functional for actually using my hands while wearing them--and isn't that the point of fingerless glove-type things? So I only did about 1/2" of the knitting post-thumb hole and then the inch of ribbing.

I do wish they were a little more snug around my wrists, but my wrists are also super-skinny  And since the ribbing at the bottom and the hand section fit just about perfectly, I really can't complain.

So now there's just one thing left to do....figure out what I'm going to do with these two orange-sized balls of yarn I have left over, since leaving several inches out of the pattern means that I didn't use nearly as much as I thought I would! I thought about knitting the second from the partially used ball, even started to do so, but was really afraid that I wouldn't have enough to finish it. So I ripped it out and used the second skein instead. I know I don't want a scarf, because I have a lot of those. A hat, maybe? Though I was already planning to make/got yarn for a different hat... I liked this beret that I saw listed under the easy patterns on Ravlery, and generally prefer that style of hat because it's looser around my hair. So I end up with less tangling. (I have the sort of hair that tangles if you do so much as look at it funny.) But I guess I can have more than one hat, right?

(p.s. To give credit where it's due, the title lyrics came from "Constellations" by Jack Johnson. A fitting choice, I thought, considering the name of the pattern.)