How to make mittens

Easy mittens

It’s the middle of summer in South Africa. Hardly cold. Yesterday was 35’C and the day before was 31’C. My other half is in London where it’s a whole 6’C. Night-time temperatures are around freezing point. Can’t imagine that in this heat.

I made these mittens a while back and they are super easy. It’s a square – folded in half. All my patterns are some kind of easy shape. It took just over an hour to make these.

I like that your fingers are still free with mittens. Can’t bear trying to pick things up or touch things with gloves on. Just feels weird.

You need: –
wool
knitting needles
wool sewing needle

You do: –
I used size 0 needles and cast on 20 stitches. This is Stocking Stitch or Rib Stitch which gives these mittens a bit of stretch. (One purl, one plain, repeat.) You can use fatter or thinner needles. And chunkier or finer wool. Remember to adjust the amount of stitches and rows you knit. Fine needles and fine wool = a whole lot more knitting to do. I’m always in a hurry to make things fast so I opted for fat wool and fat needles.

Cast on stitches

Basically you need your mittens to fit around your hand and fingers – excluding your thumb. It’s hard to tell how wide your knitting will be when you first cast on. You have to knit a good few rows and then check if it will be wide – or narrow – enough. I had to unravel and start again to get these right.

Knit rows.

My mittens were 14 centimetres wide but they stretched out to about 18 centimetres

Next you need to knit until the mittens are long enough to cover from below your wrist to just past your knuckles. Cast off when your mittens are long enough.

My mittens are 18 centimetres long

My mittens are 18 centimetres long.

Fold over and sew from each end leaving a hole for thumb

Fold your mittens over and sew with a wool sewing needle from each end until near the middle leaving a hole for your thumb to poke through.

And that’s it, easy as that.

You can also Google fancy stitches and play around with this pattern. I have yet to try cables but Moss Stitch shouldn’t be too difficult. And you can use up left overs and knit stripes!

These should go nicely with my square beanie. (Same size needles and wool.) Find the pattern for that here – FREE knitting pattern for a beanie.

Check out the Greenie Galleries at the top of this page for DIY ideas.

See you next week.

Greenie.