Winter has truly arrived here, so I made scarves and fingerless mittens for the market. (I wore my own mittens at the last market, and people kept asking whether I sold them.) The mittens pretty much flew off the table. I took a bag of unfinished ones to sew up while I was there, and couldn't keep up. I couldn't even manage to have more than one finished pair on display at a time!
So in case anyone feels like making their own, here's the pattern:
As usual, it's more of a recipe than a pattern. It'll fit pretty much anyone - on Saturday I sold a pair to a little boy who couldn't have been more than 4 years old; they reached halfway up his arms, but they fitted! The finished mittens look small, but they're superstretchy. If you really need them to be bigger, add one or two stitches on at the sides.
Use any DK wool. Wool is better than synthetics for these, because they're knitted at a fairly loose gauge, so you need the superior insulating qualities of wool.
6mm straight needles for cast on and cast off, 5.5mm straights for the knitting.
Cast on 28 sts with 6 mm needles. Switch to 5.5 mms and knit 6 rows garter stitch.
Knit 2 rows stocking stitch, add in second colour. Don't break off the first colour, just carry it up the side of the knitting, twisting the 2 threads around each other when you change colours.
Knit 12 rows of stocking stitch altogether, in stripes of 2 rows (or whatever variation of this you like, obviously!) Edited to add: the one in the photo has 16 rows. Sorry!
Next row: Knit 13, make 1 (by picking up the bar between stitches with the left needle, and knitting it through the back - called m1), knit 2 sts, m1, knit to end.
Next row: Purl
Next row: Knit 13, m1, knit 4, m1, knit to end.
Next row: Purl
Continue the thumb gusset in this way until it's 10 sts wide (8 rows in total - 8 sts have been made).
Next row: Knit 13, cast off 10sts, knit to end.
Next row: Purl to end
Stocking stitch 4 more rows, continuing the stripe pattern.
Break off second colour, knot it to first and keep knitting - I'm sure there's a more elegant way to do this, but nothing wrong with this.
Garter stitch 3 rows.
You should have the wrong side facing you; cast off knitwise with a 6 mm needle. Break off yarn, leaving a long enough tail to sew up the glove (one and a half times the length of the knitting will do it).
Sew up the seam using mattress stitch. There's a good tutorial from Knitty here, and a google search shows millions more....
(...which brings me to a very important lesson about following knitting patterns: GOOGLE IT. Somewhere someone has struggled with the very technique you're struggling with, and being a knitter, once they figured it out they had to share it. Trust me, someone's written a tutorial for magic loop, invisible cast-on, kitchener stitch, 6 kinds of buttonholes... it's all there.)
Now make another mitten to match, and enjoy the cold weather!
4 comments:
Thanks for the mitts recipe jesse, and is that your little schnauzer?
You're welcome! And yup, that's my schnauzer; he's not getting any food because he had to be rushed to the emergency vet on Sunday... he ate something unknown when I wasn't looking and it's nil-by-mouth till it comes out. So Good Health wishes from one sick puppy to another - I hope Scout stays well!
lovely mittens, and what a easy pattern, thank you for sharing!
i was thinking of doing some mittens with out figers for the computer. why our rigth hand is always frozen at the end of the day?
Awesome mittens! I wish I could knit. I wonder if there is a similar pattern for crochet.
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