With these fingerless gloves, or gauntlets, I have come full circle in a fun little design quest of a couple of years.

After I designed my very first fingerless gloves I decided I wanted to concentrate on tweaking my basic design for a more ergonomic fit. Gloves have to keep you warm, after all. So I began to play with sizeing (more negative ease or a tighter fit) and with the thumb design in particular. I eventually ended up with a gusset at the bottom of the thumb that really followed the wide shape of the base of the thumb and looked pretty cool as well. The design was striking to my eyes and so I used it in several sock patterns as the basis for a new heel treatment (worked and looked great!) and eventually even designed a sock pattern that featured the ogee shapes (that’s what these curvy diamonds are called; it’s a term borrowed from architecture) all over as a completely repeating pattern. And so I now bring that overall repeating pattern back to fingerless gloves where the whole thing started. Whew! What a journey!

I also gave some attention to the top of the thumb where it meets the palm. This is an area where gloves often just seam/pick up stitches for the tube of the thumb directly from the palm and leave it at that. I felt that some knitted fabric was needed there so I included a short seam that is finished with some Kitchener stitching for a really nice thumb shaping/fit. In addition, the opening for the fingers is snug rather than slack (as is often seen) in order to keep the cold air out and the warm air in.

Two sizes are given: S/M and L/XL. Size S/M is shown in the photos, the L/XL size will have a slightly different appearance as the individual ogee motifs will be larger. Note that the fit is snug by design and because of the stretchiness of the stitch pattern ( = negative ease) so do not size down if unsure.

This pattern is suitable for the adventurous intermediate or advanced knitter comfortable with following a chart for colorwork, using DPNS (or a suitable alternate needle set up) and has mastered the Kitchener stitch. I have included several tutorial links that should be sufficient to help most knitters. I have knit these entirely with double pointed needles but have generalized the instructions so that knitter who use other needle set-ups can still follow the directions.