Finger Fusion

You know how when you get an idea in your head AND IT JUST WON’T GO AWAY? I’m talking about the good kind – not the kind where you walk in the kitchen and every single appliance and/or innocuous tool suddenly can do grave bodily harm – no, I’m talking about the kind where no matter how much work you need to get done – you just can’t UNTIL YOU TRY NONA’S FINGER FUN!

After reading Nona’s second installment in the Serial Glove pattern, I couldn’t help myself. In my defense, I did run (check out One One Run for my progress – I’m running 20 minutes total now!) and do some work (I got about half a job finished) before I cast on for my first Idiot Cord Finger.

There was a problem though. Nona tells you not to be concerned about the ladders traveling up the back of your finger I-Cord because you twist a stitch at the top and work it down the ladder – it becomes another stitch. Okay – ingenious, I’ll agree – but the problem was that it was very loose. Too loose for my taste. And the stitches to either side of the ladder were also loose. I emailed Nona with the problem – and she said she had it too. She told me she was knitting the I-cord very tightly then massaging the stitches into a better place. She also told me to check out Purly Whites – she had knit the fingers using two-circulars instead of an i-cord. Hmmmm. Sounds interesting.

So I went to Purly Whites – she indeed had a fix for my ladder problem. She used a turkish cast on and set to make her fingers. Okay. I’ll try that.

Not so much.

The turkish cast on confused me to no end (and I was only casting on six stiches!) I wasn’t sure where to go with it after I had it cast on (I’m a little stupid.) I went back to the I-cord method. After working a few rows and all of my increases…EUREKA! Why not put it on the circulars NOW? Then I only have to pick up like four or five ladders and I can knit the rest on my circulars! So I tried it.

Here you see the front of the pinky finger.

Here you see the back.

It WORKED! So I set about making the rest of the hand. FYI, I used the large size finger instructions – I don’t think my fingers are all that big, but the first few mess ups in the medium size were a bit tight – so I went for the large. The thumb was actually the large index finger transformed – it was way too big for my finger and only slightly big on my thumb. Don’t my fingers look cute?

Today, after I do some work, I’m moving on to Installment #2. Time to join it all together! YAY! I’m so happy about this project. I’ve had this Koigu in my stash for a while and it just didn’t seem right for socks. I don’t know. The colors are so muted and I wanted something ELSE for it. Gloves are perfect! They will match my winter jacket (which is a one of those unidentifiable reddish purple but not really purple but with a lot of blue kind of colors. I’d hate to call it burgundy. It’s definitely not a rust. Whatever – pictures will follow when there’s a finished glove.) And it’s going very, very quick! Five fingers in a night – and most of that time I didn’t know what I was doing (like always, ALWAYS knit through the back loop when doing an M1. No matter how you pick up the bar, KNIT THROUGH THE BACK LOOP. Otherwise you WILL get a hole. DUH!) I’m hoping for a pair of gloves very, very soon. Stayed tuned!

Hey, did you know – today’s election day. Whoohoo! You know why I’m so happy? It’s because THEY WILL FINALLY STOP CALLING ME EIGHTY SEVEN MILLION TIMES A DAY!!!!! My sister is always bitching about elections – she lives in a swing state a lot of the time (PA) and they often have some very hotly contested races (think anyone who wants to ANNIHILATE BEAT Santorum) but NJ – well – we’re usually on one side or the other so people leave us alone. Not this year. This year we’ve got a governor’s race going on that WON’T QUIT! I’m so tired of it I almost DON’T want to vote. But I will.

I thought it was pretty cool the other day when I picked up the phone and heard “Hi. This is Bill Clinton.” (Use your best Daryl Hammond southern drawl.) But my brother one-upped me yesterday when he told me he got a call from Warren Beatty asking him to vote against Arnold Schwarzenegger. Only in LA, kids. Only in LA.

I leave you with this final parting shot:

(Oh and Bloglines? You too.)