Knitting Mittens Feb 17, 12:43
A few weeks ago my mother started hinting that she wanted some mittens and I wasn’t too enthused by the idea. I’d tried knitting in the round before and failed miserably so I didn’t want to have to go through the hassle of using double pointed needles. Enter Kate Gilbert’s Gifted Mittens. They’re knit flat, so no double pointed needles, and they’re supposed to be an amazingly easy, and just plain amazing, pattern. Boy do I ever regret ever trying to knit mittens flat.
First I knit a swatch to test my gauge, after that turned out I cast on to knit the first mitten. Ah the joy of starting a project, wondering how it will look when it turns out, wondering if it will turn out, the excitement over seeing the object emerge from your needles…. all that quickly turned to frustration when I realised that, hey, this pattern really sucks.
To start off, after I got through the ribbing, I had several lovely holes in my mitten from the M1R increase, no matter how tightly I knitted, no matter how I tried to make the holes disappear, I couldn’t get it to work. So I finally just gave up and forged ahead, I figured I could always just stitch the holes up later… right? When I finally reached the thumb I realised that this probably wasn’t going to work, but I figured I’d go ahead with it anyway, I mistakenly thought that I could fix the general crappiness of the mitten. When you’re making any sort of tube you want to knit it in the round. Never flat. Ever. The seam you use to bind the edges of the tube together will feel awful, truly awful. The thumb felt bulky and awkward, when I bent my thumb a certain way or tried to pick something up the seam actually hurt!
After I finished the thumb, despite my reservations, I continued with the body of the mitten. The instructions weren’t really all that clear, but apparently you’re supposed to pick up more than the 14 stitches from the circular needle. You’re supposed to pick up all the stitches from the circular needle and continue knitting. That way there’s only one seam on the body of the mitten. It’s a minor quibble, but it’s a mistake that I almost made, I somehow doubt a beginner would catch it as quickly.
When I finally reached the end I heaved a sigh of relief, grafted the stitches on the top of the mitten and seamed down the edge. I tried it on and, uh, it was interesting to say the least. The seams were incredibly uncomfortable, the mitten was awkward and felt too large and too small at the same time. Thinking that it may have been my fault I again checked my gauge, it was as perfect as I could get it, the measurements for the mitten were also accurate. So what gives? It’s not knit in the round. When you knit a tube flat, you have to seam it. Not a problem if it’s a cowl or even a sweater, but if it’s something that hugs your body like a scarf, glove or mitten then you don’t want any seams. I ended up ripping out the entire Gifted mitten and set out to use DPN’s, I found a knitting pattern for bulky yarn and I finished one mitten yesterday.
The pattern is called Bulky Mittens and there isn’t any preview image. The mittens are very, very basic mittens and I found the pattern easy to work with, even though I was new to the whole DPN thing. As for appearances? I shortened my cuff to 3” and fiddled with the pattern so that they would fit my hands perfectly. No muss, no fuss and now that I’m feeling a little more confident about knitting in the round I think I’m going to try socks, either Baudelaire or Hedera.
In short, I know that everyone is different and tastes vary, but if you’re going to make mittens or socks then please, please save yourself the time and energy and knit it in the round. Seams on mittens and socks are not our friends. I’ll post some pictures of the finished Bulky Mitten and its twin in progress later.
Hi I'm Becky, often referred to as The Knitting Hillbilly and Pussybear, owner of this site and general nuisance. I'm a knitter, serial complainer, known whistle blower and I run the ever popular