The yarn is beautifully soft.

I cast on for the larger size on a size 6 needle: long tail for the knit stitches, German twisted for the stitches that will be purled in the ribbing.

Although the arm warmer size calls for a larger needle for the forearm ribbing, I came up north only with my fixed circulars, which do not include odd sized needles (my interchangeables have the odds + evens). So I didn’t have a size 7, and a size 8 was too large.

To get a looser knit without a size 7 needle, I’m knitting continental for the forearm part. I knit continental (in my mind holding the yarn in my left hand and picking it) more loosely than my normal “tossing” stitch (yarn in right hand). An added benefit, Continental ribbing might not aggravate some recent tendonitis (or something) in my right hand/wrist from being too tense while knitting.

Definitely use the increases in the pattern. I tried more familiar ones on the first thumb gusset and like that one less.

After the cast off, I felt that the upper cuff at my fingers and at the top of the thumb gusset was too loose, so I updated the last rows as follows:

K2P2K2 P2tog repeats
K2 P2tog K2P1 repeats
then K2P1 repeats
for the fingers

K2P2tog repeats
then K2P1 repeats
at the thumb

bind off in pattern using Jeny’s suprisingly stretchy bind off.