The Golden Prim Wristers!

Remember in my last post about making the Prim Wristers from "Crocheting Clothes Kids Love",  I mentioned that my daughter wanted a pair of gold gloves. I had a skein of beautiful "Moonlight" yarn by Nako in my stash, and luckily these mitts take less than a skein to work up! The real bonus of using a pattern again, is that you are familiar with it, and you can work it up faster. I was able to make these in my free time in one day, so it was a great surprise for my daughter to have new gloves to wear to school the next morning!

She calls them her "golden gloves" and loves to switch off wearing these with the first purple variegated pair I made her. 

Now I am in search of the perfect pink/ coral yarn, to make a pair for her to match the ones her American Girl doll Isabelle has.

I also mentioned in my last post about the wristers, that they also look good inside out. I took a photo of her wearing the left one inside out and the one on the right is the actual right side out so you can see what they look like both ways. I love a reversible stitch pattern! Which side do you like best?

Variations on the Helleborus Gloves

Version 1

Version 2

One of the most wonderful things about having your designs listed on Ravelry, is that you get to see what other crocheters have done with your pattern!  It was so exciting to discover these two versions of the Helleborus gloves I designed for the Winter Issue of Tangled Magazine.  Version 1, by Tracy St. John, has little flowers at the ends of the vines instead of berries.  Version 2, by Debbie Schuster features the gloves in a shorter length, 9".  Both are unique and beautiful, and show the versatility of the pattern.  It is also fun to see what the gloves look like made up in different colors.  I hope that others will post their photos on Ravelry, and that seeing these versions will encourage more people to make the gloves!

When I was preparing this blog post, I found out some interesting information about designs that  are featured in Tangled Magazine.  All of the patterns are very well tested!  Tracy St. John and Brittany Tyler, the creators of Tangled, work at Stix, a yarn shop in Bozeman, Montana.  This gives them the opportunity to be in contact with many knitters and crocheters.  

Sometimes they do a class at the shop to test selected Tangled patterns,  and sometimes they offer a class as a way to promote one of the designs which has already been published.  Classes are free of charge, and are open to people who have purchased the pattern (if it is an already published pay-pattern) and the materials for the class.

When I asked Tracy to tell me more about the pattern testing, she replied; "We have gotten very valuable feedback from students when we do a class to test a pattern....several errors have been found and we always find ways to clarify and refine a pattern when we are helping students work through them. We also have several customers who work through the Tangled designs as testers.  They get a free pattern and a discount on materials (or sometimes even free materials), and then they make notes, offer suggestions, and check math and size grading for us. It works really well to get lots of eyes at different skill levels looking at the instructions".

As a designer for Tangled, it is comforting knowing that the pattern has been tech edited and tested so thoroughly.  This gives me the chance to clarify anything in the pattern that may be difficult to understand, BEFORE the pattern is published!  This is also comforting for any stitcher who would like to purchase a pattern from the magazine.  Well done, Tangled!

Introducing The Helleborus Gloves!

I am so happy to be able to tell you about the Helleborus gloves I designed for Tangled Magazine!  I was excited when I found out about this unique online magazine, and I really wanted to be included in it.  

I originally submitted a wristlet design with the same style flower, vines and berries embellishing it.  Tangled later contacted me, to ask if I would mind using the same embellishment on some mittens or fingerless gloves.  I thought the vines would be showcased well on some elbow length gloves, so we agreed that I  would make them for their Winter issue.

When it was time to decide on yarn, I immediately thought of Berroco's Ultra Alpaca, as it is wonderful to work with and comes in an amazing array of colors.  For the background, I chose 2 colors that were very close, so that it would look almost like a shaded yarn, but I would have control as to where the colors would appear.  After I chose the base colors, the others just called out to me!  Thank you Berroco for generously providing the yarn support for this project!

After the fun of choosing the yarn colors, it was time to work out the shape of the gloves.  I really wanted them to be fitted so they would act as a canvas for the vines.  It was an interesting learning experience, and it made me look at the shape of the arm in a way I never had before.  It took a few fittings and adjustments to get the shape just right, but it was worth every minute when I saw the elegance of the finished gloves.  It is fairly easy to alter the size of the gloves to custom fit them to your arm, and some guidelines for doing so are included in the pattern.  

There is a diagram provided to help you place the vines, but feel free to arrange them however you please. They could even be different on each glove.  The main goal is to have fun with this pattern!

Pin It