Mittens Inspired by the Emerald Isle

I’m a bit behind on sharing the mittens of the month from Kat at Just Crafty Enough, but this month’s pattern is pretty even if it’s past St. Patrick’s Day.

The Newgrange Mittens were inspired by spirals found on Newgrange at Brú na Bóinne, a monument dating from 3200 BC. But the pretty spirals on the mittens don’t look like they’re for any sort of holiday, so you can wear these mittens any time you like.

They’re worked in two colors using stranded knitting techniques and a chart, so they could be a great skill-building project for someone who hasn’t done color knitting or chart reading before. The bonus is the two layers of yarn that go into the mittens’ construction, making them extra warm.

[Photo via Just Crafty Enough.]

Jorid Linvik’s Big Book of Knitted Mittens: 45 Distinctive Scandinavian Designs is sure to inspire you to want to knit some fun mittens, whether embellished with classic motifs like birds, hearts, moose and classic colorwork designs or those with a more modern feel liks guitars and skulls, a giraffe, penguins or a turquoise lizard.

The book includes a lot of instructions on how to make your mittens come out right, including a discussion of how different gauges can give you different sizes of mittens (and which mittens can be worked to different sizes for kids and adults). The charts are a little different from others you might have seen in that they show how to divide the stitches on the needles and where to place the thumb.

Looking for more knitting patterns for Mittens? Check these out on Etsy.

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Not too long ago I was seeing a crochet pattern for a glasses holder shaped like a bear all over the Internet. It was super cute, and also useful as a place to put your glasses on your bedside table instead of just throwing them somewhere random.

This project stewed in my brain for a little while and I decided I needed to make a knit version, but I didn’t want to make a bear. If you know anything about me you might know that I’m a cat person, so of course my version had to be a cat.

The base is just a basic little basic worked from the center out to the desired size, then up the sides as long as you want them. Knit some ears and add embellishments to make it whatever kind of animal you want.

The way I figured out to work the base from the center out was to use a crochet cast on, which gives you an easier way to pick up stitches from the back of the cast on than if you worked a more traditional cast on for a knitting project. It’s kind of fun to do things in a different way from time to time.

This little project is adorable if I do say so myself, and even as a plain little basket not made into an animal it’s a cute way to keep your glasses or other little things in one place. I’m tempted to make one for my desk to hold pens or even little little scissors and sewing needles that are always on my desk but somehow always seem to get lost on my desk.

If you need a little holder for your glasses on your table, check out the pattern at Our Daily Craft.

[Photo: Our Daily Craft]

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