Knitter in the Kitchen

Back in November, I knit myself a pair of Irish Hiking Arm Warmers. Surprisingly, I have been using them more frequently than I expected. A couple of you wondered whether arm warmers in general were all that useful. I’m sure most of us agree that fingerless gloves alone probably aren’t going to cut it if you’re walking around outside where it snows. But if you live in relatively mild weather, or if your hands are cold just around the house, arm warmers can be very handy. So for Valentine’s Day, I knit Irish Hiking Arm Warmers for my mother and my sister.

I made the purple pair with Elann Peruvian Highland Wool. For Christmas I gave my sister an Irish Hiking Scarf and Hat in the same yarn, so now she has three items in the Irish Hiking series. I made the red pair for my mom using Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran.

I still have plans to try different arm warmer patterns, although in the future I will only knit them in the round to avoid seaming. These arm warmers are tiny, and I still dreaded seaming them!

I have a confession to make. I used to think that knitted arm warmers were pointless. I mean, if your hands are cold enough to warrant wearing gloves, then why wear fingerless ones? Won’t your fingers still freeze?

Last week Eunny posted about her Fair Isle arm warmers. I thought they looked beautiful, but I still didn’t think that arm warmers were for me. Then on Thanksgiving day I sat in front of my computer at home without the heater on, and when I got up I realized that my hands were cold. Light bulb moment! If I had arm warmers on, then I would have still been able to type and my palms wouldn’t have been so cold. Duh! And…arm warmers might be good for driving, too! My steering wheel is cold in the morning, but I don’t like wearing gloves when holding the wheel…so maybe arm warmers are the solution? Oooooh, new project!

I searched for a simple arm warmer pattern in my books. There is a neat pattern in Last Minute Knitted Gifts, but it called for 8″ circular needles. Eight inches? Sixteen-inch circs already seem small, so I can’t imagine using eight-inch ones! I guess I could have used DPNs instead. I also found a cabled arm warmer pattern in Stitch N Bitch Nation. I was about to knit this pattern when I remembered the Irish Hiking Wrist Warmers. Bingo!

I used size 8 needles and almost one skein of Elann’s Peruvian Collection Highland Wool in color #4142 (Orchid Pink). I only had a little bit of yarn left. This yarn is itchy, so maybe next time I will use Cascade 220 or my favorite, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino. It was a really quick project — I knit, blocked, and seamed them in 3 days. I have one more skein of Orchid Pink left, so I’m thinking of knitting a pink and brown striped hat to match my arm warmers.

If you know of other cool arm warmer patterns, please send them my way!

On a technical note: can anyone tell me how to use the “future” function on MT to publish posts? I set the status to “future” and then changed the publish date to a future date and time. I was expecting my post to publish at that time but it didn’t…am I missing a step? Thanks in advance!