My original intent was to make Fingerless Gloves - Outlander Brianna. They were to be a gift to a friend who is reading Outlander for the first time. I'd not seen the Outlander Claire Simple Knit Arm Warmers pattern before – just found them a couple of days ago. Since Brianna doesn't appear until book 2, it seemed doing the Claire Arm Warmers would be more appropriate, plus my friend runs & I have no doubt she'd actually use the arm warmers.
So switching from throwing to 'flicking' while working on this project. has probably tripled my knitting speed. It's exciting because now I can get knitting projects done in a reasonable amount of time. Started the arm warmers Thursday afternoon & finished them Friday evening (all but binding off the last one & weaving in tails on both).
Here's the pattern for the Outlander Claire Simple Knit Arm Warmers
There were 3 changes I made to the pattern:
[1] Rather than knitting flat & seaming, they were done on circular knitting needles using magic loop technique – this is a very easy pattern to convert.
[2] Cast on per pattern was 40 stitches. Used 36 for 2x2 ribbing so it wasn't as loose around the hand, but on the first row after ribbing, increased 4 stitches evenly over all the stitches.
[3] Instructions were to bind off in ribbing. The bound off edge of ribbing on the upper arm end needs to be stretchy & binding off regular isn't stretchy, plus it can cause the ribbing to “flare”. First thing I found was Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off which I was planning to use, but then I found another video that uses this bind off on the wrong side for a really nice look.
A Stretchy Pass Over Bind Off (JSSBO)
How I use Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind-off knitted from the wrong side
The yarn used was Lion Brand 'A Touch of Alpaca' in Dusty Blue. The Alpaca content is only 10%, but the yarn appears/feels like a more 'natural' yarn than mere acrylic, which is the other 90%. It feels like it will be warmer, too. My only complaint - the yarn is pretty "splitty" and care has to be taken to make sure you're getting the whole strand, not just pieces of it. This drove me crazy on the bind off since I had to lift two stitches over one stitch during the process. More than once, I had a little strand sticking out & had to undo/do over.
Some pictures:
