Introduction:

Persia, historic region of southwestern Asia associated with the area that is now modern Iran. The term Persia was used for centuries and originated from a region of southern Iran formerly known as Persis, alternatively as Pārs or Parsa, modern Fārs. The use of the name was gradually extended by the ancient Greeks and other peoples to apply to the whole Iranian plateau. The people of that region have traditionally called their country Iran, “Land of the Aryans.” That name was officially adopted in 1935.

Persian/Iranian gloves use the middle-eastern wrapped cast-on to knit from the fingertips down to cuffs. The gloves flow in a natural way and you can easily imagine the shepherd in the “field” knitting the gloves as he watches his fat-tailed sheep.

The shepherd doesn’t have a pattern book, or a chart; all he has is a set of 5 double-pointed needles, probably made from bicycle spokes, a ball of hand-spun wool, hands that need to keep warm, and a head to think with. That’s all you need to make these gloves tool It’s OK if your DPNs are purchased; you don’t have to recycle your bicycle wheels. My favorite needles are DPNs, US Size 1 (2.25mlli).

Wool and Gauge: Think of ,handwear as footwear: both get a lot of hard use, so knit gloves with wool designed for heavy use: sock yarn. When knitting woman’s average size gloves, I like to double sock yam and knit very firmly at 7.5 sts/inch. I particularly like Schaffer’s “Anne”’sock yarn doubled for gloves. For my knitting, #1
needles (2.25mm) gets me the gauge I need. Wool designed to knit ganseys (5-ply, tightly spun) is also a good choice. For a man’s hand, use the same number of stitches for the entire glove, but knit with thicker wool such as 3-ply Norwegian “Hifa” sock wool. This pattern, firmly knit at 6 sts/inch, results in a glove that will
fit an average man.. You will need extra DPNs to store fingers on’ as you knit them. The extra needles can be the same size you are knitting with, or one size up or down. You’ll also need a safety pin (preferably coilless) to mark beginning of round.

To help get you started, I demonstrate how to do a Middle-East wrapped cast-on on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr2tDNLXCx8.

If you want to learn how to knit both gloves at the same time I have a YouTube video you can watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5dQejYqoPc.