by gannet
updated 21 October 2024
(most recent photo)
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Every year I lose at least one of the fingerless mitts I knit for myself the previous year. Last year I knit fancier mitts than usual because I was having fun. This year I was a hurry, so I knit the simplest style of mitts I know: garter stitch rectangles knit so the ridges are vertical on my hands after sewing them into tubes. The ridges act like ribbing. There are thumbholes in the seams, and I added thumb gussets along the seam to keep the base of my thumbs from getting cold.
This is not a proper pattern for knitting mitts; these are my notes. I blogged about the method for a previous pair. If you copy the method, fine, but please don't make a pattern entry on Ravelry because it doesn't meet my standards for my published patterns, in multiple ways.
In any case, it's not an original idea.
All done. (It's hard to take a picture of both of my hands. The other mitt matches.) I'm glad I knit the thumb gusset, but I wish I'd made it a few rows taller. I'll know for next time!
Here's both mitts, showing how the tube making the main part isn't shaped. The ridges made by garter stitch have extra stretch, and stretch nicely to grip the palm of my hand. The only shaping is the thumb gussets I added after grafting the seams.
After knitting the gussets, I bound off the gusset stitches and the live stitches around the thumb holes in one pass.
I've done the two ends of the seam that turns this rectangle into a mitt. I'm trying it on in the picture. I do want to make a triangular gusset to cover the base of my thumb. I have some plain brown sock yarn that I think I'll use for that. I think I wouldn't like how the variegated brown yarn would look.
reminder before I forget: cast on 42 sts. Graft 15 stitches on wrist end of seam, 12 at the other.
Well, I got up to seven inches of knitting, and there was a knot, which means I can't count on starting the color repeat at exactly the same point. So I will unravel back to six inches, and finish off the first mitt before casting on for the second.
On the plus side, this means I can possibly discover whether this yarn will always produce this kind of pattern with this number of stitches no matter where I start in the color repeat.
I cast on a few days ago. I cast on enough stitches so that the length of the rows was the same as the single mitt I have from my first pair using this method. I'm interested to note that I'm getting the same kind of patterning from the variegated yarn as I did in my second pair in this style.