Bird's Nest Knits: Free Patterns

Its all knitting all the time Chez Bird's Nest.

Most recently finished are the BroadRipple fingerless gloves- which was a really fun way to get ride of extra skeins of sock yarn because it only takes one skein for a pair. It was a pattern I made up as I went along and was inspired by the BroadRipple sock pattern from Knitty - originally I'd started knitting the cuff on that and got bored and turned it into a fingerless glove pattern. Anyone can probably divine the pattern but I'll type it out here for whomever might want to try it out, your mileage may vary! I use the Magic Loop method but you can easily enough split the stitches onto 4 dps if you want to use those.

Yarn: 1 skein JaWoll Color Superwash Sock yarn
Gauge: 9/5 sts/inch
Needles: Size 3 Addi turbos

Cast on 56 stitches and join in the round without twisting. (Magic Loop or two circs will split the stitches evenly in half and have 28 stitches on each section, DPs will have 14 stitches on each needle).

Work the Garter Ripple stitch for 6 repeats.

Garter Ripple Stitch:

Round 1: *K2, yo, k3, ssk, k2tog, k3, yo, k2; repeat from * around.
Round 2:Purl.

Repeat Rounds 1 & 2 - 6 times

Switch to the Ripple Stitch and knit in this pattern for 2 inches.

Ripple Stitch:

Round 1:*K2, yo, k3, ssk, k2tog, k3, yo, k2; repeat from * around.
Round 2:Knit.
Repeat rounds 1 and 2 for 2 inches.

Then knit for 2 inches.

Knit the round up till you have 4 stitches left from the end of the round, purl 1 stitch, make 1 stitch twisted, knit to the end of the round. (on following increase rows - purl the purled stitch to note where the increases should be)
Next row - knit

Repeat these two rows until you have increased 14 stitches, finishing with a knit round. This is your thumb gusset.

Place these increased stitches plus the purl stitch onto a scrap piece of yarn (18 stitches) - you'll finish the thumb later. Knit to the top of the thumb opening where you've slip the stitches to scrap yarn.

Cast on using the backwards loop 11 stitches, and knit the last cast on stitch with the first stitch at the end of front of the hand (stitch right before the purl stitch). This now rejoins the back of the hand to the front of the hand.

Knit for 1 inch and then bind off the body of the hand.

Slip the 18 thumb gusset stitches onto your needles in the round and pick up 12 stitches from the cast-on edge of the thumbhole, twisting them when needed to keep holes from forming. Split the stitches evenly on the needles as necessary.

Knit 20 stitches, SSK, k6, k2tog in the thumb crotch.
Knit the next round even.
Knit 18 stitches, SSK, k4, k2tog in the thumb crotch.
Knit evenly for four rounds, bind off.

Repeat for second hand reversing directions for your right hand. Try it on as you go along and adjust the length of each section as desired if you want a longer cuff or have a longer palm etc.

Edges along the thumb and fingers are meant to roll.

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In other knitting news - I met up with a few of the SD knit bloggers at Rebecca's for coffee and then lunch at the Linkery. I loves me some sausage yes sirree. In attendance were Christina, Heidi and Mary Kay, we missed Wendy, but I got a call from her that she was fine and ended up spending the morning in bed with Mr Spaaz and the pups - which is a good excuse as far as I'm concerned. The coffee was good and the company even better. We even had a lady come up to us and ask if we were some other SnB group that was supposed to meet there. I said we weren't but invited her to join us anyhow. She decided to wait it out though. Maybe I look intimidating who knows.

I started on Lady Eleanor and I must say - looking at the instructions the first thing I thought was - how the hell is this going to work? I even had Christina and Mary Kay trying to figure it out with me. But I decided to go ahead and just take the leap of faith and do what it says. Entrelac is cool people! Much less confusing once you do it and its pretty interesting. I'm not all that far along but it's keeping me quite engrossed to see the color changes. My only beef on the Noro - Not even done the first set of triangles and I already find a knot.

And on Thursday a few people met up at Mary Kay's house for beer pizza and knitting. What better reason to get together? Its been lots of knitting events in the last few days and I've been really enjoying it. I had class on Thursday night so I only could stay until 6 unfortunately and missed seeing Hilari and Christina. I did get some Rottweiler love though from Mary Kay's pup Missy - the 2nd cutest dog ever.

I got some amazing hand dyed roving from Mary Kay which I cant wait to spin up into sock yarn cause umm.. I dont have enough sock yarn as it is or something.

Uh.. here's Mary Kay spinning (we wont speak of what I need or dont need)