slow: mitts

Real­ly enjoy­ing work­ing with slip stitch after mak­ing the lunar new year bam­boo. I like the slow­er pace of work­ing up the fab­ric with this stitch. And I fig­ured it would be a dense enough stitch to make a warm pair of mittens.

I used:

Worsted weight yarn

5.5 mm hook, and a small­er hook for weav­ing in ends

Tapes­try needle

The mit­ten is cro­cheted flat in one piece, fold­ed in half at the thumb, and seamed togeth­er from the tip of the thumb to the cuff edge. The pho­tos that fol­low will help make sense of the construction.

All sl st worked through back loop only (BLO).

Mit­ten mea­sures 9″ long, 4″ across palm, 3″ across wrist, 2″ length of thumb. I have rel­a­tive­ly small hands. The mit­tens can be made larg­er with addi­tion­al ch in the begin­ning and begin­ning ch of thumb, and addi­tion­al rows between rows 7 and 15 

Pat­tern:

Row 1: ch 23, sl st in sec­ond ch from hook, sl st in every ch to end, ch 2 (these two extra ch increase the length by 1 st). 

Row 2: sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in every st BLO (back loop only) to end.

Row 3: ch 1 (does not count as a stitch), sl st in every st to end, ch 2.

Row 4: repeat row 2.

Row 5: repeat row 3.

Row 6: repeat row 2 (25 st altogether).

Row 7–15: ch 1, sl st in ever st BLO to end.  

Row 16: ch 1, sk first st, sl st in next st and every st to end (skip­ping the first st decreas­es 1 st).

Row 17: ch 1, sl st in every st to end.

Row 18: repeat row 16.

Row 19: repeat row 17.

Row 20: repeat row 16.

Row 21: repeat row 17 (22 st altogether). 

Row 22 (thumb begins): ch 1, sl st in the first 12 st, ch 7, sl st in sec­ond ch from hook, sl st in every ch BLO, sl st in next st on the side of mitten.

Thumb row 1: ch 1, sl st in every st on thumb to end (8 st on thumb)

Thumb row 2: ch 1, sl st in every st on thumb, sl st in next st on the side of mitten.

Repeat thumb rows 1 and 2 three more times. 

Con­tin­ue work­ing 10 rows on thumb, with­out attach­ing the end of the row to the side of the mitten.

Don’t fas­ten off. ch 13, sl st in sec­ond ch on hook, sl st in every ch, work 5 sl st across the base of the 10 rows of them that are not attached to the body of the mit­ten, work 5 sl st into the remain­ing 5 st in the side of the mit­ten. It will end up look­ing like this with the thumb fold­ed in half.

Repeat rows 2 to 21 of mit­ten. I found that it was eas­i­er to fold the thumb in half and pin it togeth­er as I worked along so I don’t get con­fused about which direc­tion I was going.

Fas­ten off. 

Cuff: Attach yarn to edge of cuff (direct­ly oppo­site of where last row end­ed), ch 11, sc in sec­ond ch from hook to end of ch, sl st in next stitch in the mit­ten that looks like a “v”, sl st in next st that looks like a “v”, sc BLO in every sc to end. The mit­ten here is pic­tured upside down with the first cuff row started. 

Con­tin­ue across the edge of the cuff. Here is a close up of the hook point­ing at the mid­dle of the stitch that looks like a “v”.

Attach yarn at the top of thumb. Weave yarn through all the stitch­es in top of thumb, cinch and tie off. Con­tin­ue seam­ing down the thumb and around the mit­ten to edge of cuff. Fas­ten off and weave in ends. 

The mit­tens are actu­al­ly fair­ly quick to work up. If you’re in/near Toron­to, con­sid­er join­ing us in the annu­al Warm­ing Toron­to event on Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 9. We spend an after­noon at at a pub down­town, knit, cro­chet, loom, have a pint, share snacks, chat­ter, and make hats, mitts, scarfs, cowls, etc. for dis­tri­b­u­tion at emer­gency shel­ters over the win­ter months. If one mit­ten is fin­ished at home first, one can def­i­nite­ly fin­ish the pair while hang­ing out for a few hours at the event.  

Stay warm! ❄