Glove Affair

 Items used in the 'Titanic' display in April at the Wild Rose Antique Club Show and Sale

Crochet, silk and kid gloves from before 1918.

Wristlets or Pulse Warmers as advertised in the Sears Roebuck Catalogue

Here is a pattern for Wristlets from the Columbia Book of Yarns 1901. Columbia Yarns 155 Wristlets Knit Material - Knitting Yarn, 1/2 hank, 3 Steel Knitting Needles No. 15. Instructions: Cast on 56 stitches, 2 right and 2 left, until you have the desired length, then finish with a crochet edge around the wrister.

And from ‘How to Use Florence Knitting Silk’ copyright 1881 and copied by the University of Southhampton Library as a pdf.

These wristlets are from the Sylvancroft estate.

I was inspired by a Bears Brand pattern for my first ‘wristlets’, more like gauntlets! I used the stitch pattern but that was all. Started to run out of yarn and decided to add fingers after all.

In the interest of wanting to knit something vintage…I used this pattern from an early 1940’s Vogue pattern book #15 (I couldn’t find a date, just going by the clothing and styling of the models).

Using Qiviuk yarn, the stitch pattern is a twisted rib and makes the fingers twist weirdly! The plastic glove holder is too big. They fit the recipient just fine.

Design decisions for the second pair of Qiviuk gloves. Again hoping to follow a vintage pattern, I choose one from the book “A Stitch in Time” Vintage Knitting Patterns 1930 – 1959 Vol 2. Originally a pattern from Weldon’s Knitwear Leaflet No B1249 from the early 1950s.

Determined to follow a pattern, I made up the stitch swatch, figured out my gauge to fit my hand, and proceeded to knit. It called for a double moss stitch, for some reason I used a stitch directory and not the pattern. My stitch swatch is not the same as their pattern which calls for K1 P1 and not K2 P2 etc.

Here is a vintage glove display piece from the early 1950s.

Orange gloves are hard to find.

Another pair of wristlets completed in time for the first snow!

Here is a picture of me in 1979 with mitts made by my mother. My friend Sharon took the picture for a photography assignment we were taking at Grant MacEwan. She received a good mark because of the clarity of the picture and capturing my feeling of being very cold!