I made these to fill in some time while tv watching - wristwarmers that I thought really were to use up some extra yarn -- second hand store yarn at that! I wore them to a craft fair this past weekend, big old barn type of place that I knew would be cool and I wanted that little touch of warmth while helping to man a booth for 4 hour stints. Well they worked beautifully, but there were none for sale - the booth was quilt related items, not crochet. I ended up talking almost more about these wristwarmers than of the items for sale -- I even demonstrated a couple of times how to do the particular stitch and gave people some estimates of the number of stitches. Now, I am working on two pair as gifts -- seems if strangers thought they were pretty great, well relatives (for christmas gifts) might also like them.
The crochet stitch I used was a half double crochet and about 45 chain stitches to start. After doing the base row of chain stitches, I did two chain stitch to act as the first hdc of the first row, then a hdc in every chain. Row 2 is chain two that acts as the first hdc, then 1 hdc in every back loop of each hdc of the row. Row 3 is again those two chain and 1 hdc in every front loop of each hdc. This is created a simulated ribbing as in knitting. Now depending on your hand you repeat rows 2 and 3 for about 5 inches (this is for a medium womans hand -- 4 1/2 " for small hand and about 5 1/2 to 5 3/4" for a large hand)-- this should snuggly fit around your hand, then don't cut your yarn but crochet the two sides down for about 6 stitches -- then slip stitch on one side about six stitches - this creates the thumb opening. Continue to join the long seams together to the end. Now you have a very nice wrist warmer (or fingerless gloves if you want to call them that). You can add stitches to the thumb hole to give a bit more coverage to the thumb - 10 to 12 single crochet around the thumb hole for 3 or 4 rows. Finally you can add a row or two of single crochet to the top and bottom of the tube to give it a more finished edge. Great for driving, or typing in an office where the boss is too cheap to turn up the heat! If you need more detail or instruction, there are other variations of this idea all over the internet -- even one on the Lionbrand site (clik on the link on my side bar) or just google "free patterns for crochet (or knitted) wristwarmers".
I must say, it was a surpise at how interested people were in them -- the new thing? maybe?
And this is the first one of the second set that I am working on, here you can see, a bit better the way the thumb and top edge is worked. Let me know if you try out these and how they work for you.
