1950s Vintage Crocheted Gloves

I've had a bad patch of luck with glove purchases on Etsy lately. Considering the size of my hands (beastly) I shouldn't be surprised; but I really wanted some delicate crocheted gloves for the Napier Art Deco Festival.

Since none of the gloves I purchased fit (crochet gloves don't stretch very much - don't believe the listing description) I decided to pull out my crochet hooks and make my own.

I haven't crocheted anything in about five years but that never stopped me buying every ball of crochet thread I could find in any op shop I wandered into. After a quick search on Ravelry (which I haven't been to in years), I found the pattern Pretty Gloves for Summer - not exactly art deco, being from 1952, but they were too cute to resist.

Luckily enough, I was able to rely on muscle memory for almost all the stitches, and the only thing I had to muddle through was the right tension and hook size to use. This of course was a mission in and of itself - I think I made the first few rows about five times before finding a hook size and thread that would work. My glove size is about 8.5 - a damn sight bigger than the dainty size 6.5 gloves the pattern allows for! Using thread a size bigger than the pattern recommends seemed to help, though of course the row heights were bigger than expected. This meant I needed less rows to achieve the same result.

Unfortunately I didn't realise this until I got up to the part where you start making the thumb. Since the cuff is made afterwards by joining to the start, and my glove was already long enough to account for a cuff at this point! With limited time left, I made the decision to just keep hammering away at it and decide what to do about the cuff later.

While not the most confusing pattern I've worked with, there were a few points where I was almost ready to abandon it. After the second glove I realised it was my own mistake - where it says "join as before", it really means it, not "work in continuous rows" like I ended up doing. In my defense, the way the rows are joined ends up looking very wonky, so I stand by my decision to work continuously.

After working the fingers without too much drama or tears, I had to think about the cuff. The pattern calls for the elastic to be joined on the foundation chain (this is where your wrist would normally be). The problem was that my foundation chain sat about two inches below my wrist!

After some hum-ing and ha-ing, I joined the elastic on the row where my wrist actually was, and used this delightful trim pattern to finish it.

I'm simultaneously pleased and surprised with how much I like them, considering I haven't picked up a crochet hook in literally half a decade. My hooks aren't very good quality - halfway through the second glove, the steel plating started to flake off and leave shiny debris all through my work. Time to start investing in some good quality hooks!