Make Your Mittens with Colorwork

Mittens are a utilitarian item if ever there was one. They just need to keep our hands warm reliably. They don’t have to be cute.

But since we’re knitters and we’re going to knit our own mittens anyway, they might as well be cute, too, right?

It doesn’t necessarily take a lot of effort to make a pair of mittens that’s objectively nicer than the options you could buy in a store, but if you want to put in a little more work than that, so you can have a really nice and pretty and warm pair of mittens, I’ve got just the thing for you.

The Hibernus Mittens from Fleece Love and Happiness are meant to be Christmas adjacent, but not so holiday that you don’t want to wear them in the not-Christmas cold season (which, where I live, is almost all of it, since it doesn’t usually get that cold until January).

It’s really the colors that give them a holiday feel, since the colorwork itself isn’t holiday, and blue dominates in the colorwork flowers and diamonds.

These mittens are perfect for intermediate knitters and have lots of fun techniques included. They’re worked from the bottom up with ribbing and a Latvian braid, then the colorwork is charted and has four colors total. There are charts for the back of the hand, the palm and the thumb, but the palm and thumb are an easy checkerboard pattern so you won’t have to follow the chart as you go on those.

The pattern uses super fine yarn and comes in one size for adults. Of course wool yarn would be the best choice here for warmth if you can handle wool on your hands.

You can download the free pattern from the Fleece Love and Happiness blog.

[Photo: Fleece Love and Happiness]

Not too long ago I did a test knit for another designer that was for a cabled cardigan. It’s really cozy and nice but it just about broke me in a ton of different ways. I couldn’t get gauge, which I suppose is my own problem, but mainly I was somehow both bored and forced to pay attention at the same time.

Because it used the same cable all over, I always had to know what row I was on, but nine out of ten of those rows, nothing in particular was going on. So I couldn’t stop paying attention, but what I needed to attend to was boring.

It may have ruined me for knitting cabled sweaters, but maybe I just need something that’s more engaging. Like this Modern Aran Cardigan pattern from Lion Brand Yarn.

This is a reworking of an old pattern from their archives, and you can tell that form the classic look of the cables and the oversized feel (nothing cropped about this one!). It has allover cables, but like a classic Aran sweater it’s not the same cable, so you’ll have to pay attention to what row you’re on and what cable turns happen for which cables on that row.

Because of this, it’s considered an intermediate knitting pattern, but if you’re comfortable working from multiple charts at once it shouldn’t be a problem for you. There are three different charts and seven different cable moves.

Also because the pattern is so big and boxy there are only two sizes available, with a finished chest measurement of either 49 or 63 inches (that’s 124.5 or 160 cm). It’s up to you to decide how much ease you would like and whether that will work for your body.

The pattern uses worsted weight yarn (and calls for another classic, Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool). It calls for six buttons and includes pockets to make it extra cozy.

This one looks like a great winter project to make and to wear if you’re up for a bit of a challenge. You can grab the free pattern or buy a kit with the yarn needed direct from Lion Brand Yarn.

[Photo: Lion Brand Yarn]

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