Still a chill - O springtime where art thou?

First of all: HAPPY BIRTHDAY dear sister! Maybe you are not surfing the blogworld today to read this, but still...

Then: The armwarmers are excellent for keeping my wrists and lower arms warm and as bad/good luck would have it that is exactely what I need these days. Bad luck referring to my hope and expectations for the arrival of springtime and rising temperatures, with no need for sturdy accessories like these. Good luck referring to a real chance to show off and use my latest creations as soon as I got them off the needles. My Matchy Matchy hat, neckwarmer and armwarmers are not out of season after all - it is just the season it self being out of season... Scroll down for armwarmer pattern if you need some compensation for the lack of warm weather too ;o)

ARMWARMERS

Yarn: Sulka, Du store alpakka (CA 45 g Petrol S209 and ca45 g Seagreen S236)

Needles: 8 mm 60 cm circulars and 5 mm 40 or 60 cm circulars

The armwarmers are knit back and forth on circulars - you can of course use dpns in stead.The pattern allows you to easily change it to preferred size - just keep knitting the stripe pattern until you got the desired length (which of course requires more yarn than stated here).

Cast on 78 st on 8 mm needles. Change to 5 mm needles and knit 7 rows of 2 x 2 rib.

Change to 8 mm needles as you also change colour. * Knit 1 row, purl one row, then change colour again, knit 1 row, purl 1 row*. Repeat this stripe pattern 10 times (ending with the first rib colour).
Change colour, knit ONE row and change to 5 mm needles.

Knit 4 rows of 2 x 2 rib
Cast off very loosely using 8 mm needles. Weave in loose ends and then join edges together by Invisible Weaving, also called Mattress stitch, Backstitch, Overcast stitch like this:

Then, of course, make another identical armwarmer and enjoy the soft, arm- and heartwarming feling :o)

I DID rotate these photoes before uploading them, but Blogger keep jinxing them so I can´t be bothered to try again. The reason I am posting the above and below photo (and the one further down) is to illustrate how neat and almost invisible the seam appears - I love it! Above: Armwarmer knitware without seam. Below: Armwarmer knitware with (almost) invisible seam

...as you can see below, this is as good as it gets when it comes to seaming up bulky, striped knitware. To the leftt: Armwarmer without seam. To the right: Armwarmer with (almost) invisible seam