Originally published Friday, July 18, 2008
Mittens again? Yes, mittens again. My sisters told me they really don’t need more socks, but they sure would like mittens. So mittens they shall get. But cousin Vickie will get socks, socks, and more socks. She knows that a girl can never, ever have too many pairs of handknit socks.♡
Since I have SABLE amounts of sock yarn in my stash (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy), I thought I’d start with a basic mitten pattern designed for fingering weight yarn so that I can use up some of the sock yarn I have accumulated (and continue to accumulate).
I Googled and found what appeared to be a perfect basic mitten pattern on Berroco’s site that was written specifically for sock yarn. Hooray! says I. So, I choose some yarn, grab my needles, cast on, away I knitted.
But something didn’t seem quite right. I tried on the mitten after I had completed the thumb gusset and it was huge. I double checked the pattern and my gauge, and I had followed the instructions to a tee, and my gauge was spot on. But the mitten apparently was designed for an extremely misshapen hand. LOL
The pattern has you working 2 inches of 2 X 2 ribbing and another 2 inches of stocking stitch before even starting the thumb gusset. Then the thumb gusset itself is nearly four inches long. Crikey! Did anyone even bother to try on the test mitten?
Since this pattern is obviously crapola, I ended up “designing” my own basic mitten pattern which was really quite simple to do. I added a fourchette to mine, which is a small gusset where the thumb joins the hand. It sounds a little complicated, but it is really very simple and improves the fit and comfort of the mitten.
You can see the prototype mittens in the picture. I have another pair under construction, and I will post a picture and the instructions here on my blog soon. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to make the pattern downloadable. You might have to simply copy the blog entry to your hard drive or copy and past the text and photograph into a word processor. I’m not very sophisticated at web site technicalities.
Speaking of web site technicalities (how’s that for a transition?☺), my fondest wish seems to have come true. I was hoping that the problems with my blog’s appearance since the switch-over from dotMac to MobileMe would take care of themselves and, lo and behold, it appears that they have. When I checked my blog today, everything was intact. The true test will come in a few minutes when I hit the “publish” button. I sure hope this entry is published with no glitches.
The transition from dotMac to MobileMe was not a smooth one for subscribers, so to compensate us the inconvenience, Apple is giving us 30 days of service added to our subscription gratis. Gotta love ‘em. ☮
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All Kinds Of Knitting 