This is the first time I’ve designed my own knit.

I’ve uploaded a PDF of my pattern here, and shared my pattern with Ravelry here.

I couldn’t find just what the recipient wanted which was a tipless fingered glove with some interesting texture (but without overdoing it).

Luckily, I recently had two pieces of inspiration that particularly helped me.

First, in adapting a fingerless pattern for a friend, I found an empowering tutorial from Interweave Press, Progressive Gloves (which sadly now seems to be gone). This gave me all the measuring information I needed to get started.

Secondly, I was knitting a pair of socks at the time, a pattern called “Fox Faces Socks,“ in which Nancy Bush introduced me to the Estonian lateral braid. It was love at first knit.

I finished my first prototype (March 14). Then I frogged that and tried a different one, which was all wrong, so I went back to the original idea but with a few tweaks.

All in all, this turned out to be a very simple pattern.

The star of these gloves is the linen ridge stich, which I found in this Vogue Knitting Stitch-a-Day 2010 Calendar and HAD to use. The way I’ve incorporated it here brings to mind tire treads. Thus the name.

I love the way the silky Berroco Palace yarn looks with the texture of the linen ridge pattern. The silk catches the light nicely, and makes them feel sophisticated. I would love to see these knit up with a yarn that has slight variation in tone such as Malabrigo. I’d also think this pattern would look neat if it was done so that the areas of linen ridge were blocked in a different colour from the rest of the glove.

I think I could adjust this pattern quite easily to suit a completely fingerless mitt. So perhaps I’ll make a second prototype with this and my yarn ideas in mind.

I also think I’ll type up my pattern and share it on my newly created blog. I’d love to see what other knitters could make of this.