FO: Cozy Hand Warmers

aka, More Stash-busting!

My mother and I joined an enjoyable yarn crawl in the fall of 2007 that toured several shops around Central Texas. She and I also amassed quite the collection of random, one-ball freebies. This ever-so-seldom, rarer-than-a-bloody-steak urge I'm having right now to stash-bust lead me finally to finish off one of these freebie balls.

pattern: Cozy Hand Warmers by Joelle Hoverson, in Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, also found here for free.
completed: August 16, 2009.
yarn: Tahki Yarns New Tweed (silk, cotton, rayon, merino; 92 y; color 036; 1 ball).
made for: a silent charity auction, to benefit a group participating in the Four Corners Native American Ministry of the UMC (basically, building repair on the Navajo Reservation). They brought in a whopping $5, but since the yarn was free...
needles: size 5 bamboo DPNs.
notes: I went down a needle size for a more snug fit. Also note that I changed the direction of the ribbing for the second glove; the light hits it funny here, but it's all just 2x2 rotating ribbing.

In order to kill off an entire ball of yarn, I knit down from the top on each, stopping the first glove when I got to half the ball (thank you, kitchen scale) and knitting the second glove until I polished off the ball. It wound up being I think 30 rows after you close up the thumb opening. The yarn is vanquished.

Oh, and do you like these glove-blockers? They actually weren't for blocking, I just decided I needed something to show shoppers at the auction what on earth these things are (they don't look like much on their own). I used the cardboard backing from a legal pad, traced one hand, cut it out, then used that as the pattern for the other hand reversed. I stylized them a bit by intentionally cutting inside the lines on the first "hand."