Sturdy Fingerless Gloves

Let's get started on all the handmade Christmas gifts! I made these gloves for one of my two favorite brothers-in-law, who both DJ's and does grading and tree removal throughout the year. Since he works outside using his hands, I thought he could use a pair of sturdy gloves that would still leave his fingers free to get things done.

The pattern for these is from the blog My Recycled Bags, which as the name suggests, has a number of great free crochet patterns using reclaimed plastics and other materials. The Men's Crocheted Fingerless Gloves pattern uses standard yarn, and I made these using Caron's Simply Soft Solids in Black.

One of the best things about this pattern is that it explains a simple technique to end continuous crochet in the round with a smooth edge. This is something I've struggled with because I greatly prefer this method to ending each round with a slip stitch to join and a chain to start the next round. However, I've ended up with a bump at the end of the final round because of how it steps up over the last few stitches. The technique described in this pattern, which uses slip stitches to replace the last few stitches in the final round, completely fixes that!

The pattern suggests crocheting tightly or doing a decrease in the last couple of rounds to make sure the hand opening is snug. I decided to do a decrease on row 32 (second to last row), then just crochet tightly for the final row:

Row 32 - [Sc in next seven sc, sc2tog] four times, sc in next three sc (34 stitches)
Row 33 - Sc around using instructions to end with a smooth edge.

The thumbs on my gloves lay at an odd angle when they're not worn, but fit and looked normal on. I assume this is related to something about how I worked the first row of stitches to add the thumb, so any tips on how to fix that would be welcome.