January 1966: Keep-them-warm Mittens

My 2024 New Year’s knitting resolutions are to 1) destash as much as possible and 2) finish all the “endless” WIPs. (Or to quote the famous German New Year’s Eve short film Dinner for One, “Same procedure as every year.”) In that spirit, my January blog project was made entirely from stash.

The mittens (Stitchcraft calls them “mitts”) are knitted in DK wool on two needles, i.e. worked flat and then sewn together. Aside from the fact that many mitten patterns were written this way at the time, it has a very practical reason in this case: the vertical stripes are embroidered on after the knitting is finished, which would obviously be significantly more difficult to do if the mittens were made in the round.

The original pattern uses the very 1966 colour scheme of “Loam Brown”, “Bright Olive” and “Tangerine” on a white background. I used leftover maroon wool from my 1920s men’s “sport coat” as the main colour, with stripes of white and medium blue (also left over from the same project) and light blue (left over from I don’t know what other project) with the intention of giving the gloves to the recipient of the 1920s cardigan as a late Christmas present.

The knitting was quite easy — all stocking-stitch. The horizontal stripes are knitted in the normal way and the thumb is made flat out of a gusset on the mitten. When the gusset is wide enough, you work the thumb to the end (back and forth), then pick up a few stitches at the base of the thumb and continue the hand part of the mitten flat as well.

The vertical stripes are embroidered in chain-stitch, which can be anchored very easily in the little horizontal strands between the knit stitches. That also makes it easier to keep the lines straight. The embroidery is on both the palm and the back of the hand. After embroidering, you weave in a whole lot of ends and sew up the side, top and thumb seams and voilà. I used a three-needle bind off on the tops or the mittens, since I thought it would be easier and more elegant than binding off and sewing a seam, but I don’t think it really made a difference in the end. I blocked them, but they hardly looked different before and after — all I did in the blocking was to widen the thumb a little bit, since it was fairly narrow in comparison to the hand width, and make sure the lines were nice and straight.

And that was it! Both I and the recipient are very happy with the finished mittens. They were quick and easy and used up some stash. Now I have some time in January to work on those endless WIPs. Stay tuned and maybe one will appear here soon.