Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Waiting for Winter Mittens ~ Bigger and Now Little, too!




Hi, Knitters,
It has definitely been mitten knitting season in my house recently. I have been knitting little mittens and big mittens and measuring hands around here. I've even darned a beloved mitten. I've concluded that I basically love knitting mittens. And little mitten knitting is really the best thing ever.

I have a mitten pattern called Waiting for Winter Mittens & Fingerless Mitts and it has become the most popular pattern in my Ravelry Pattern Shop. The sizes for the adult-size Waiting for Winter Mitten pattern included adult small, medium and large. The medium-size fit me perfectly. 


Yesterday I updated the adult mitten pattern with added sizing instructions for mittens that will fit larger women's and men's hands. I added extra-large and xx-large sizes. I think these new sizes round out the pattern nicely. 




And now I've just released the Little Waiting for Winter Mittens pattern which includes baby-sized thumbless mitt, kids mittens for ages 2-12 years old and kid-size fingerless mitt instructions! 

Here is some information you might like to know:


Pattern information:

The adult-size Waiting for Winter Mittensand Fingerless Mitts pattern has become the most popular pattern in my RavelryPattern Shop. I’ve recently updated the original pattern with two larger sizes that will fit extra-large hands. Now it’s time to tend to those tiny (and squishy) hands in your life.
This pattern for little ones includes children’s mitten sizes for small, medium and large kids. Plus, I’ve thrown in two thumb-less baby-size mitt instructions found at the end of the pattern. It’s nice to have these little sizes all in one place.
Let’s get started before those little fingers get cold!
Size: Child’s Small (Medium, Large) to fit a 5 (6, 6 ½) inch hand circumference measured across the knuckles at the base of the fingers and at the top of the palm.
To Fit: Approximately 2-4 (4-8, 8-12) years old – this will vary!
Baby Mitts (pattern on page 9) sizes: 6-12 months (12-24 months)
*The length of the hand and thumb can easily be made shorter or longer. Suggested lengths for each size are given in the pattern.
Yarn: 100 yards of a worsted weight yarn.
Note: I weighed the samples in grams for the 6-12 month size baby mitt and the child’s size small and medium.  
6-12 month: 11 grams
Small: 20 grams
Medium: 28 grams
The samples in the photos are striped in Noro Kureyon yarn. If you’d like to make the stripey version alternate 2 contrasting skeins of Noro Kureyon every two rounds. The thumbs and the top of the hand decreases are not striped and are just knit from one skein.
Note: There are options for customizing the length pointed out in the pattern. Be sure to note if your mittens are longer than the suggested lengths in the pattern the yardage requirement will be greater than listed.
Suggested needles: US 7/4.5mm double-pointed needles, set of 4
Gauge: 5 stitches per inch in stockinette stitch

To celebrate the new mitten sizes big and small, I am hosting a knitalong on my Ravelry group. Please join us. There is a thread stickied at the top called Little Waiting for Winter Mittens & KAL (knitalong). All you have to do is post a photo of any pair of Waiting for Winter Mittens (baby, kid or adult-sized) you have knit at any time (you could have knit them yesterday or a couple of years ago)! Super easy! You can post as many times as you have pairs of mittens.

I'll pick some winners from the photos that are posted along the way and at the end of the knitalong, December 21st. You can chat in the thread, too. No big rules, just a celebration of mitten knitting.



If I'm knitting the stripey version of the mittens where I am alternating skeins every 2 rounds I will count the stripes when I am knitting subsequent pairs. I have knit so many of the medium adult-sized mittens that I have the number of stripes memorized for the cuff, hand and thumb. This makes it so easy and fun. I don't even have to look at the pattern.

Here are some mitten-y photos for you!

The baby mitts are the smallest size and the kids mittens are knit in the small and medium sizes.





Thank you, as always, for the support! I hope you love your mitten knitting this season as much as I do. If you have both of these patterns you will have every size covered from baby to xx-large adults. 

Here are the links one more time:





One last thing, at the end of the week I am posting free patterns to make little sweaters for the wooden cut-out sheep and alpacas from Juniper Moon Farms. These wooden cut-outs are an effort of Susan Gibbs and her husband to raise $5,000 for Heifer International this season. She is having an update for the animals this Thursday in her Etsy shop if you are interested. 

I'll talk more about all of this later in the next blog post with the free sweater patterns for the animals. These make super cute ornaments and gifts! I have all of the sweaters knit and on my cut-outs now and they are just adorable. I used mini-skeins of fingering or sock weight yarn. I can't wait to share more.


Click here for the JuniperMoonSheepShop on Etsy! Thursday, Nov. 17th is the update.

Happy mitten-knitting season to you all. I'll be back soon with more.
xo ~ susan