Hand circumference

Hand circumference is the distance around the hand at the knuckles, with the thumb left out. It is the main number of a glove size. Hand length, from the crease where the wrist meets the palm to the tip of the middle finger, comes second: it tells you whether the fingers will reach the ends.

How to measure

1. Use your dominant hand, the one you write with, or measure both and keep the larger numbers.
2. Open the hand flat, fingers together, thumb out to the side.
3. Wrap a soft tape around the knuckles, across the widest part of the palm, leaving the thumb out.
4. Let the tape lie flat on the skin, not pulled, and read. Note the unit.

The template step: "around your hand at the knuckles, excluding the thumb." No tape: wrap a strip of paper, mark where it overlaps, and measure it flat against a ruler.

On a size chart

The Gloves template gives two centimeters per size:

The gaps are real: 20 to 21 cm belongs to neither M nor L. In inches, with fractions on, the guide writes values under 15 in in eighths, so the 19 cm start of an M (7.48 in) reads 7½ in.

In Ruban Size

On a glove chart, Find my size asks for Hand, and for Hand length when the table has a row with that header. The circumference counts most; the length counts half as much and moves the answer near a boundary. "Fit I like" works on gloves too: a 20.5 cm hand, between M and L, gets L with Regular and M with Snug. Gloves are one of the types on fit by product type, and the Gloves template is ready to edit.