Ladies' gloves and Mitts.

I have been quite excited about the cold and snow in the last week. In fact, I was hoping that the cold would stay around for just a little bit longer. Not because I am a hater of the Spring, no, far from it. It is all down to the fact that I have finally knitted myself a pair of lovely, squishy, warm and cosy mittens and I love them!

I have wanted a pair of mittens for a good while but always seemed to be needing to knit something else more. So when I finished my last project (which will be featured here when I have finally sewn it up!), I quickly cast on my mittens before I decided something else was more pressing.

I used this pattern, Weldon's A1093 that I already had in my collection. I think it is probably from the early 1950s. I chose this for a few reasons: some lovely cables going on, moss stitch for squishiness and knitted on 2 needles which I thought would be an interesting construction as most gloves and mittens are now knitted on 4 needles.

I made a couple of changes, the first being the type of yarn. It is written for 3-ply yarn and I used a 4-ply extra fine merino in a beautiful petrol/teal colour. I didn't change the needle size as I have relatively large hands and thought that if they came up a little large that wouldn't matter. I didn't do a tension square (naughty), as, well, I was hoping for the best and frankly just wanted to get on with knitting them! But I would recommend it and indeed would do normally when not using the yarn that the pattern specifies.


A close up of the pattern, showing wrist rib, main pattern cables and
the moss stitch.

The wrist rib is purl 2, knit 2 and gives a nice snug fit so no draughts get in! Then you knit on in the cable and moss stitch pattern for a while before dividing for the thumb. This involves slipping 2 sections of stitches on to 2 separate stitch holders and continuing knitting on a small section of stitches. I knitted the number of rows the pattern stated and then measured it against my thumb and realised it would be far too big. I would look like some odd long thumbed creature. So I took it back a bit, no measuring, just judged it by eye against my thumb.

The three sections of stitches, the thumb section is
in the middle.

When the thumb is the correct length a couple of shaping rows are knitted to round it off. The next job is to join up the thumb seam. This is quite exciting as it starts to really look like a mitten and you can put your thumb in the thumb hole and admire how mighty fine it is going to look.

Showing the thumb sewn up.
  

In order to close the gap around the thumb hole a few stitches need to be picked up and knitted before continuing in the pattern. This leaves the thumb waving around comically as you knit on. It provoked some mirth at knitting group with comments that can not be mentioned here!
Then it is just a matter of continuing in the pattern, decreasing to shape the top and then sewing it up which is pretty quick and simple.



Finished!



In close up.

So here they are! My lovely, lovely mittens! They were really pleasing to make and the construction and the cables kept it interesting. So, just a little longer of cold weather is fine by me!