Knitting .... after mostly crocheting for years, I’m working on improving my knitting (taught myself to knit as a teenager, but bad hand positions/habits, etc. works against me). I find that knitters tend to have one thing they love to knit: socks are a ‘biggy’, sweaters is another.
My ‘biggy’ is fingerless mittens. I’m pretty obsessed with them. I have an “easy” pattern from Bhooked that I like, but it has a ‘thumb’ that you have to add after the main mitten is finished. It also calls for “chunky” yarn.
So, how about a pattern with a ‘gusset’ rather than a thumb & using 4 medium yarn? I found one!! We have a group that knits for charity & they posted that they need fingerless mittens for dialysis patients & posted a pattern for people to use. It uses #4 yarn, has a thumb ‘gusset’ and unlike all the other patterns I have, it knits from the top down to the cuff, which is “interesting” and I find that I like it.
Yesterday, it was rainy & cold here so no outdoor work was possible & the house had a MAJOR cleaning for a luncheon that happened last week which means NO ‘you-should-be-cleaning-instead-of-knitting’ guilt! I knitted two of the fingerless mittens per the ‘From the Heart’ pattern. That is a real improvement for me to knit two mittens in one day. They fit my hand nicely and I’m going to make some more for Christmas gifts with this pattern. There is a picture of the mitten on the pattern ... if you don’t like the long ribbed cuff, you can knit a few rows more after the gusset is finished before starting the 2x2 ribbing for the cuff & then just don’t do as many rows of ribbing.
This pattern is ‘easy’ enough that after two mittens, I pretty much have it memorized overall - you do need to keep a row count.
BTW, I used #8 circular needles rather than the 7 called for in the pattern - mittens turned out great. A 7 is 4.5 mm, 8 is 5.0 mm so I didn’t think it was enough difference to make a significant difference in the mitten.
The yarn used yesterday was ‘I Love This Yarn’ & the knitting needle size listed on the yarn is #8, so that was another reason I figured an 8 would work ok.