So why does The Boywonder want fingerless mittens? So that he can text continuously when he’s outdoors in the cold, of course!
Having been underwhelmed with my first efforts at knitting mittens on 2 needles, I found a pattern that looked fairly simple for DPKNs. Gloves are fiendish, you see. It’s the gusset, more elegantly the fourchette, that causes all sorts of problems. I dealt with this issue by avoidance. A warning though: this pattern looks like it’s for fingerless mittens, but in fact the finished article is more of a wristwarmer shape. The Boywonder has already sniffed at this. “They’re well long!” he says. Yes, a statement of fact, but it contains a criticism.
They are intentionally long, to keep his beautiful, delicate musician’s hands warm when he’s out in the middle of the woods for three days and nights in Cadet camp. The thing with moss stitch is that the back and forth uses up a lot of yarn, and takes me, at least, a lot longer to knit, but it makes the knitted fabric very much more elastic than pure stocking stitch and, because it is denser, I think the mittens turn our more snuggly and perhaps warmer. Nerdy disclaimer: of course I have no scientific proof of this. If he rejects them, I shall wear them instead. Of course, he’s bound to lose them in the next couple of days.
I do like the look of moss stitch but I haven’t ever done it in the round. So one essentially does a round of K1 P1 followed by a round of P1 K1. Not difficult at all, except that starting the round with P1 somehow caused me intermittently to pick up too many stitches. I have no idea why. As ever with DPKNs, it’s really important to work the first stitch on each needle very tightly to avoid holes appearing. And, of course, knitting in the round means that there is no tiresome seaming with which to contend after having finished the knitted fabric. The mittens are there in their entirety.
Pattern: Debbie Bliss from Vogue Knitting Mittens and Gloves
Knitted with Rowan pure wool aran yarn 100% superwash wool in Shade Marine 00683 on 4 x 4.5mm birch wood DPKNs and 4 x4mm birch wood DPKNs
