Knitting

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Mitts to Knit for the Whole Family

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One year I decided I wanted to knit everyone (all the women, anyway) in the family fingerless gloves. I think I knit them for my daughter’s teachers, too. There were mitts everywhere, all the time.

I love fingerless mitts because I wear them in the house throughout the winter. They’re great for teachers who have outdoor duty or anyone who gets cold hands. In my experience kids like them better than mittens because they can still use their fingers, but of course they’re not great for playing in the snow.

If you want to knit mitts for everyone this year, check out Mitt the Family from Neisha Abdulla. These DK weight mitts are worked seamlessly in the round, and they’re sized from toddler to large adult. The stitch pattern even makes them reversible, so you can turn them over if they get stained. As a person who spills coffee a lot that’s a big selling point.

The pattern in all five sizes is available from Ravelry for €2.50 or about $3.08.

[Photo: Neisha Abdulla.]

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. 

Comments

  1. I knitted full mitts for the xmas shoeboxes for years. Then my friend accompanied them in the truck from the UK to Rumania. She said fingerless mitts were much prized over full mitts. Though many very poor villagers lived in a state of poverty we’d find unacceptable, many had smartphones so needed fingers free, indoors in unheated homes as well as outdoors, so I make them now. Thanks for these new patterns.

Have you read?

Book Review: Knit an Heirloom Blanket

It’s kind of coincidental that I recently posted about patchwork blanket knitting patterns right before reviewing a book that makes a patchwork blanket, but this one would also be a great choice if you’re looking to bust some stash and learn a lot about colorwork knitting at the same time. 

Knit an Heirloom Blanket by Annah O’Leary includes charted designs for 50 colorwork blocks worked flat that can be combined to make a blanket or used in other projects. The book calls for worsted weight yarn but also offers suggestions for using fingering, DK or even bulky yarn, which will give you blocks of different sizes.

It opens with a section on materials and tips for choosing colors and maintaining contrast among blocks across a large project. There’s also information on how to read charts and colorwork basics such as maintaining tension, measuring gauge, catching floats, holding yarn and yarn dominance, among other things.

There are 196 squares (14 by 14) in the blanket shown on the cover, which, including the edging, makes for a blanket that’s about 79 inches, or 200 cm square knit in worsted weight yarn. You can adjust the size as needed by working more or fewer blocks, especially if using a different weight of yarn. 

The sample was worked in Cascade 220 and the book includes the amounts of yarn used in each color so you can knit a blanket exactly as shown. Or use stash and leftovers from other projects to make a possibly less harmonious but more meaningful project. 

Colorwork patterns are arranged into 10 themes: flowers, tiles, diamonds, stripes, peaks, woven, sky, leaves, lovestruck and architecture. They’re also rated by skill level on a range of 1 to 3 balls of yarn. If you’re newer to knitting or colorwork in particular, you can start with the easier squares and move up as you build more skills. 

Each pattern is shown as a large black and white chart with three or four possible color variations, though or course you can also go your own way on the colors. There’s also a knit sample of each block pictured at the beginning of each pattern section.

There’s also a section to help you finish your blanket, including tips for weaving in ends, blocking, joining squares and adding a border. She also suggests different project sizes and color palettes for smaller scale projects.

In addition to the big blanket there are five other project ideas including a baby blanket made of 6 by 8 squares, a hot water bottle cover, a couple of pillows and a wall hanging. These are sure to give you ideas of different ways to use the blocks in other projects. 

Knit an Heirloom Blanket includes lots of fun colorwork blocks and ideas for using them that are sure to appeal to those new to colorwork as well as those with more experience. Even if you never knit a full blanket with them, you can add these motifs to your collection to work in other projects. 

About the book: 144 pages, paperback, 50 charts and 6 patterns. Published 2026 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $25.99.