I’m still working at them, between knitting shawls. I have one glove past the end of the thumb gusset. Please excuse the bad picture, but you can see a larger version if you click on this one:

Although I am enjoying knitting these gloves and I do like the way the pattern is developing, I really, really want to knit one of the more famous grid-based Sanquhar patterns like Duke. I couldn’t make them for myself because I’d have had to mess around with the pattern too much to make it fit my narrrow hand, or aim for a gauge of 15 or more sts/in. Fortunately, Rys has volunteered to let me knit him a pair, which with his big hands will only be about 11 sts/in, and he has even promised to wear them if I get the fit right.

We happened to be in John Lewis yesterday. Our friend Diana, who works in their yarn department, had told us about a yarn that might be suitable for his gloves, Rowan’s 4-ply Yorkshire Tweed. I think she is right, as it is not machine washable so although it is not as ‘clingy’ as the Shetland I’m using for mine, I think the floats will bed down nicely once it is washed. Rys chose the combination of Oceanic and Dessicated. ["dessicated"? what kind of name is that for a yarn colour?!?!]

While we were in John Lewis, two little fellows followed us home:

… and talking of being followed home by sheepies, my friend Jan, who was also my first formal spinning tutor, picked up some interesting fleeces while at the 6th World Congress on Coloured Sheep in New Zealand last November. I bought 500g of moorit Polwarth from her:

The speaker at the meeting was Annabelle Spencer of the Falkland Islands Agency in Wells. She brought along a good selection of pure Merino fleece from the Falklands, and I couldn’t resist getting a pound of this superfine ‘silver’ which, as you can see, is actually more brownish than the description would suggest.

… that we go to a Wingham Wools sampling day. Well, that is our excuse for buying so much in one day. Wingham bring a vanload of fibres of oh-so-many types, some yarn and equipment and various other stuff, enough to fill a hall, and then a horde of avid spinners descend on them and strip the place almost bare.

We bought a lot of natural silk tops to dye, replenishing the stock I’ve gradually used up over the past year, and some silk filament for experimentation. Most of the other fibre I bought was as presents for friends. I got some merino/silk top (back and centre) and space-dyed silk top (front and right):

and merino top and pencil roving:

and Rys bought some merino pencil roving for himself:

That brightly coloured tangle of merino top is for teaching at demonstrations. It is easier to get kids (and many adults) to have a try if we have nice bright roving for them to use, so we rummaged among the balls ot top and pulled off arm-lengths of the brightest ones. It was fun!!!

I’m making progress on the gloves. I’m knitting them in parallel to avoid any risk of ‘second glove’ syndrome. I’ve reached the start of the thumb gusset on both, so it seemed a good time to take pictures and give a progress report. It’s getting dark so I had to use fill-in flash, and by the time I realised the “5″ is obscured by the needle it was too late to take more.

Yes, I am using unmatched sets of needles. The pink ones are #00s from the Susan Bates sock set (very nice needles) and they are a tad larger than the others, which are 1.75 mm Inox. That doesn’t worry me as I discovered when I measured my hands that my right hand is slightly larger than my left, so if that glove does work up a little looser, that will be a good thing.

That discovery started me wondering whether there is any connection between my right hand being dominant and the size difference. It isn’t like having better developed arm muscles on the dominant side due to more exercise, as my hands are very thin and the knuckles (where I measured) are really just skin and bone.