These gloves have been sitting in the queue for a while. I knitted them and wrote the pattern in the spring. I made a pair for my husband and a pair for myself. I usually give away my knitted things, but I’m keeping these. I’ll wear them because they fit so well. My husband has large hands so these are a solid men’s large to extra large. If you make them for yourself you can try them on as you knit the fingers and make the length just right.
With my abundance of Knit Pick Palette fingerling weight yarn I went to work on a children’s mitten pattern that nicely fits small hands. I have plenty of left over yarn from all the mitten-making so this seemed like a good thing to work out as a use for small amounts of yarn.
Since children have such different sized hands I simply could not say “age 4” and have that make scenes. My grand baby that is 2 years old has bigger hands than his sister that is 3 1/2 years old. I went ahead and knitted all the sizes and measured them, that way you can take a measurement of a child’s hand and pick the right size in the pattern for them.
Here’s the FREE pattern. Enjoy!
When I’m designing mittens I usually try to make a pleasant balance of the stranded “busy” part of the design and the plain knitting. For me personally, plain knitting is less fun even though it sometimes looks best. For Wild Flower Mittens I let myself go with the stranded part and did almost the whole design with pattern. Here’s the pattern for FREE. Get Busy!
I can’t seem to get away from knitting mittens. Sure, I make other things, but I always seem to come to the mitten. I started this pattern by making the large pair, then I worked out the other sizes. The colors from the small pair turned out to be my favorite so I’m using the midnight blue ones as my “cover shot”. The funny thing about this pattern is that I designed it all with paper and pencil instead of using the computer. We were staying outside of Durango, Colorado and I didn’t have internet. I normally use an online graphing site, stitchfiddle.com, to design my colorwork patterns. Since I didn’t have a connection for several weeks I ended up making with 4-stitch repeat pattern on paper. So old fashioned!
Here’s the pattern for FREE!
Starting at the beginning of 2022 I decided to learn to knit gloves. After dozens of mittens, it seemed like the next step. First I knitted a few patterns off ravelry.com but I didn’t like the fit of any of those gloves. I started to think I could design a better fitting glove myself.
The first thing I worked on was the thumb gusset—and I know thumb gussets from making mittens (my previous obsession).
I got the shape down for my own hand, then I started working on standard sizing.
I thought that making gloves wouldn’t be fun because it’s so fussy to knit in the round with just a few stitches on each needle. The key to having fun with this is shorter double pointed needles that are specifically for making gloves. The first few pairs were made with 100% wool. The glove pattern I’m working on now calls for sock yarn – washable and durable. In the end, the pattern that worked well with fingers is a checkerboard. Each finger in my patterns has an even amount of stitches– the pinky has 16 stitches, the 1st finger has 18 stitches, the thumb has 20…. so the only pattern that would work in the round would be a 2 stitch repeat. That’s how I came up with this pattern that I will eventually publish here.
It’s not really cold out yet, but there’s a slight chill in the morning. It’s not time to wear mittens, but it is time to start knitting them! Here’s my latest free knitting pattern called Toasty.
It’s a charted pattern worked with 2 colors. It’s best for the knitter who knows how to read charts. I used Knit Picks Palette yarn which is my favorite for mittens. Of course they will have to be hand washed since they are 100% wool. If you are making these for someone who won’t hand wash, you could substitute a superwash wool.
Enjoy!
We are back from our trip to the American Southwest. We traveled in Nevada, Arizona, back to Nevada and then to Utah. I did A LOT of knitting on that 5 month trip. I was designing up a storm with more projects in the fail pile than being “Success!” category. However, I learned a lot from my mistakes! Just for kicks I decided to post 3 “fails” – poorly fitting ear-flap hats. They are now in the “Goodwill” pile at our house. Maybe someone with really low-set ears will be excited to find these hats at the thrift store! Seriously I just couldn’t get the ear flap length right. After these three tries I gave up on ear flaps. I did learn some things about color and contrast. The red hat, for example, doesn’t have enough contrast between the two colors. Sometimes what looks right on my screen during the design process doesn’t look right in the actual knitting. I’m learning!
ummm….are those upside down agave plants? Why? Why would you do that?
During the last few months I’ve been doing a lot of stranded color work. I’ve been very interested in seeding patterns and have designed a few mittens where the seeding isn’t just on the palm in the traditional way. With Spring Seeding I have made the mitten the same on both sides thus creating a mitten set that doesn’t have a left or a right side. Here’s the FREE pattern for you to enjoy:
Happy New Year! Today I’m posting my newest pattern: Carmelita Mittens. They are named after my daughter Carmelita Jacobina. I’ve been doing a lot of stranded color work over the last few months. Mostly I’ve focused on sharp edge designs—think diamonds and zig zags. Then I was struck with the idea of doing more rounded edges in the design and worked my way into floral patterns. If you are interested in making these mittens I’ve written up the pattern. It’s free—Enjoy!
Fleece Love and Happiness 