Warm Hands, Warm Heart

I made a scarf and hat for my sister (her favorite color is green), and had a pretty good amount of yarn left over, so I decided to add some arm warmers to the set.  We each have a set of knitted ones we got for Christmas (I think they were from Target), and we really like wearing them.  They're nice for Florida winter, since they keep your wrists warm, but don't require that you wear long sleeves all day.  They're also just a fun fashion statement!

I found a couple patterns under "Free crochet patterns" on the Lion website, but they were all made from squares of plain single crochet.  I started making one, then abandoned it when I realized that I would have a not-very-stretchy tube that would be either too tight around my hand or too loose around my wrist--not very good if you want it to stay up comfortably. 

Enter crochet "ribbing."  I made a chain 30 stitches long, skipped the first chain, and did single crochet all the way across.  Chain one, turn, and here's where you get the cool stuff.  Single crochet in just the back loops from here on out, and you get a ribbed effect.  I continued until the rectangle was wide enough to fit comfortably around my wrist--not too tight in the hand, not too loose in the wrist--about 15 rows for me. 

At that point, I finished off, leaving a tail about two feet long.  I used that to sew up the two sides of the tube.  I sewed four stitches from each side together (rather firmly), carried the yarn through five stitches (to leave a thumb hole), then sewed the rest of it together.  It works quite nicely! 

If I try making these again in solid-colored yarn, I might add some decorative stitching with contrasting yarn on the back of the hand, just to make them more interesting.  These, however, are perfectly lovely the way they are, I think.  They didn't take much yarn, either--I still have enough yarn to make another pair or two!

I suppose I should talk a bit about the kind of yarn I used, but I think I'll do that later when I write about the hat and scarf. 

(Now I need to find some leftover yarn in another color to make a pair for myself!)