You can knit armour?

Why yes you can!

Okay, first things first, in some ways, I am a bit of a geek. Yes, I said it. Therefore, so are some of my friends. This means that when I make things for them, I can go a little geeky when I do it and know they will be loved. So when I saw the scalemaile gauntlets pattern by craftymutt, I just knew I had to make them, and who for!

The pattern is super simple, but I didn't feel like swatching and working a lot out for myself out, and the pattern is so cheap and comes with handy charts for if you are planning to create a pattern within your scales its well worth the buy.

Now the scales, they are no easy to come by in the UK and not cheap. The annoying thing is that they are far more freely available in the US and cheaper there too, but with the various rates for buying in from outside the EU what with customs, RM charge etc, and of course the now high mailing rates from the US, I can't utilise those sites. I did find a seller on ebay doing them as cheap as I have seen them anywhere in the UK and it was still quite a bit. But these are my best friend's christmas present so she's totally worth it ;) But finding them in the UK is a pain, be warned. If you are in the US, TheRingLord.com is your friend!

Still, I ran the idea of these to her as her present, and after a resounding 'hell yeah!' I got her to choose her colour of scales and she chose this gold. I then typically went on to alter the pattern a touch. Knitted fabric can stretch, but I didn't want to make these with a tonne of negative ease and be too tight, but I know her hands are bigger than mine. So I cast on the medium size, and ribbed the palm rather than knitted in garter. The reason should be obvious in this picture

 

 

The ribbing makes for a nice, extra snug fit that adapts with the shape of the hands and wrists, meaning they never get too loose. Important as they have a bit of weight to them. They aren't heavy, but the scales do make the fabric behave differently. And to be honest, the palms are not where you are looking. Not when the backs look like this

Please excuse the stool in the background, I forgot to move it before taking pictures. Ho hum. In any case, these were a very fun project. They only took 36g of aran weight yarn I got from Violet Green and in my opinion look crazy cool! I hope she will enjoy them a lot!

Till next time!