I first tried #0 signatures cause one of the tutorials mentioned that Continental tends to be a tad looser than English…well I’m getting much better at tensioning the yarn, but I still kind of hold the needles with a death-grip, so my first gauge swatch turned out to be 9.5 sts/in. rather than the 7.5 sts/in. I’m aiming for. Also I was having some trouble with the tips of the Signatures being so long and stabby. I think for this yarn and for my first Continental project I may want blunter tips until I can stop stabbing my fingers and have a better sense of where to put the tip of the needle in the yarn… I think I’ll try the #2 squares next and try to loosen up my grip some.

Oh yeah, and the yarn is GORGEOUS!!!

#2 squares got 9 sts per inch. Huh. I guess I’ll try #3 next? The blunt tips of the squares is working much better for me too.

#3 squares also got 9 sts per inch…le sigh…I may have stretched out that end of the yarn a bit. I’ll try #4 squares next and pull from the center.

#4 square DPNs (7”) came up with 8 to 7.5 sts per inch…perfect! Also, Joyce showed me a way easier way to purl continental style today that also leaves my stitches a little looser. The way she showed me how to knit by wrapping the yarn with my index finger rather than “picking” with the needle also leaves a slightly looser gauge and lightens up the force I’ve been putting on my right thumb when I direct the right needle through the loop. I’m still not 100% consistent with using that method, but I’m working on it.

Off I go!

The black stripe uses about 143 inches of yarn. The beginning of the cake has about 107 inches of black. So I have to consider whether I want to have a shortened edge of black or if I want to cut into the yarn further down to start a fresh black stripe….I’d have to reproduce this on the second glove…I also know I want to start with a black edge (and end with a black edge if possible, but I realize that may be harder to predict).

I think I’ll just allow for an abbreviated edge and reproduce that in the second glove.

I ended up strategically cutting the yarn to reproduce the striping on the thumb. I made sure to have 5 rows of each color. I had some leftover blue from the end of the bind-off around the fingers which was plenty for the 5 rows of blue on the thumb. I don’t think there will be enough leftover black to use for the black stripe on the next mitt, but we’ll see. I know I’ll have to cut out a whole blue section and some of the black to start in the same spot on the second glove, so I’m sure that piece will come in handy…

I really was aiming for a black edge for the top bind-off but I ended up with a small blue edge instead, which actually looks fine, so I’ll live with it.

The first glove is done and feels perhaps a tad loose? Hopefully it won’t grow much in blocking…

Finshed both gloves. I did the tubular cast off too tight on both, but it’s more pronounced on the second one. I couldn’t quite match the touch of blue at the top on the second…it looks a bit sloppier than the first. I noticed while I was weaving in ends that the opposite side looks really cool too!

No edits to the pattern. I wasn’t super thrilled with how the tubular cast off turned out, both in the tightness (totally my fault) and the way it looked. Maybe I was twisting the stitches wrong? Ah well, overall they look fine. Bonus points: totally taught myself how to knit continental style (with a few pointers from Joyce)!