Knitting help-Double pointed needles

seajaxx

Hi there,
I'm trying to knit a pair of gloves for my daughter's christmas, and I'm stuck on the part of the pattern where it goes from knitting on two pins to DPN. the cuff has a seed stitch border.
Starting with 45 sts, the instructions are " Divide sts onto 4 dpns as foll: 5 sts on needle 1, 17 on needle 2, 18 on needle 3 and 5 on needle 4. Form a circle as for knitting in the round, but over-lap the 5 sts on needle 4 with the 5 sts on needle 1 (not sure how to do this)
PM and join for circular knitting as foll: [K1 st from front needle tog with 1 st from back needle, p next st tog with next st from back nedle] twice. K next sts from front and back needles tog.
K to end of rnd- 40 sts.
I'm very confused.
The pattern is Elli Stubenrauch's Rainy Day fingerless gloves [URL="http://store.vogueknitting.com/p-632-rainy-day-fingerless-
gloves.aspx"]here[/URL]

Can anyone explain?

Angelfeathers

I have to admit I've never tried dpns, since I just use a magic loop instead, but it sounds to me like it wants you to hold the two needles with 5 stitches on beside each other so that the ends of the circle are overlapping and you can knit into the first stitch on both needles at the same time, i.e. in the same stitch. Does that help at all?

flea72

what are you knitting skills like, because dpns arent for the faint hearted

before going any further, i would get out your dpns and do lots of basic practise, because gloves are not an easy project if you are new to knitting in the round

not sure how far up the pattern you are (just above the vent on the cuff im assuming, as knitting stitches together would close it off?) - to do this the pattern wants you to join needles 1 and 4 together. so just lay needle 4 behind needle 1 and knit stitches together as described, which would then drop you down to 4 needles. continue knitting in the round as directed

without looking at the pattern as a whole, its hard to pick up what you are doing

F

Penelope_Penguin

seajaxx wrote: »

Hi there,
I'm trying to knit a pair of gloves for my daughter's christmas, and I'm stuck on the part of the pattern where it goes from knitting on two pins to DPN. the cuff has a seed stitch border.
Starting with 45 sts, the instructions are " Divide sts onto 4 dpns as foll: 5 sts on needle 1, 17 on needle 2, 18 on needle 3 and 5 on needle 4. Form a circle as for knitting in the round, but over-lap the 5 sts on needle 4 with the 5 sts on needle 1 (not sure how to do this

I'm very confused.

You have 4 needles to knit with. So you divide the stitches onto 4 needles. Then using the 4th needle, you work the stitches from the 1st needle, so freeing up a needle to work the stitches on the 2nd needle, and so on

Does that answer your question - I'm not really sure what you're asking?

valk_scot

seajaxx wrote: »

Hi there,
I'm trying to knit a pair of gloves for my daughter's christmas, and I'm stuck on the part of the pattern where it goes from knitting on two pins to DPN. the cuff has a seed stitch border.
Starting with 45 sts, the instructions are " Divide sts onto 4 dpns as foll: 5 sts on needle 1, 17 on needle 2, 18 on needle 3 and 5 on needle 4. Form a circle as for knitting in the round, but over-lap the 5 sts on needle 4 with the 5 sts on needle 1 (not sure how to do this)
PM and join for circular knitting as foll: [K1 st from front needle tog with 1 st from back needle, p next st tog with next st from back nedle] twice. K next sts from front and back needles tog.
K to end of rnd- 40 sts.
I'm very confused.
The pattern is Elli Stubenrauch's Rainy Day fingerless gloves here

Can anyone explain?

It's making an overlap where the seed stitch cuff changes into the bottom of the hand section. It's presuming you have a set of FIVE dpns...do you? UK dpns come in sts of four or five. If you don't have five of the same sort, use an extra one of a different size and make sure you put it away again as soon as you finish this round.

Then divide your stitches up as they say..5, 17, 18, 5...and hold the two needles with the five stitches each one behind the other (which needle you hold in front might change with whether you're knitting the right or left glove) and literally poke your fifth needle through one stitch from each needle, k or p as directed, slip both stitches off. You're making each pair of stitches into one, thus giving you a total of 40 stitches.

seajaxx

Thank you all for your help- sorry I didn't post back yesterday evening, I was working a night shift and had to get to work.
I've used DPN for socks, fair isle berets, baby-hats, that type of thing, but never gloves, and hadn't seen that type of instruction before.
I'm off to try some of your suggestions before I get some sleep.
Many thanks for your replies!

Pentagon

I use the two circular method rather than dpns as I find it far easier and faster. Although I do quite enjoy knitting with dpns on occassion.