Otter warm-paws

Natalya gauntlets (high key), in Calmer. These feel great to wear, but I didn't enjoy knitting them much. They were a little on the tedious side, and cabling with the cotton (even such lovely, squishy cotton) made my arms a little sore.

I made a few modifications to the pattern - the gauge of Calmer is finer than called for in the pattern, so I added a pattern repeat at the cuff end, which I decreased out a couple of inches before starting the gusset. I like the effect as viewed from the decrease/gusset side:

but it causes the other cables to spiral round the arm at the underarm (the cables lie straight along the back of my arm:

In addition to the 15 thumb stitches, I picked up another three where the thumb meets the palm. This accounts for the gauge difference, and seems to have eliminated the small hole otherwise expected in that location:

I also added 4 rows of ribbing to the top of the thumb, after only 3 rows of stockinette. This snugs them in to my slightly odd-shaped thumb, and matches the top of the mitt.

These will be lovely in the office, where the air conditioning manages to freeze my hands whilst simultaneously making it too warm to wear a sweater. Again, many thanks to Cari for pointing out that they can be made with a single ball of Calmer!

Started: a week or so ago Finished: this morning

• The first project I've cabled entirely without a cable needle
• I learnt both the backward-loop increase and the lifted increase in the course of knitting them. The gusset on the second one is noticeably more even than the first.