I'm just cruising on through here to sing the praises of my friend Minty's new mitten pattern, the Merion Mitts! It's currently available as a pdf through ravelry.
I test knit the pair you see here - the pattern is very thorough, clearly written, and bonus - fun to knit. Mine are knit in malabrigo worsted merino, which, if you can believe this, was the first time I had ever worked with malabrigo. Ridiculous, I know. Well now I know what everyone's always raving about. And the best part about it is that these mittens took about 2/3-3/4 of one skein, and I bought two, so I have a little more than a skein left. I'm thinking snowball hat with a comically large pom (because what other way is there to rock a pom, really), and it's going to get started very, very soon. As soon as I finish up a very overdue gift I've been working on.
Back to the Merion Mitts, though, if you're interested in the details about my pair, here they are on rav. The palm is in seed stitch, which, especially in the malabrigo, makes for some serious squishiness. And honestly, I find seed stitch to be a complete pain in the ass, and this was just the right amount. I get the benefits of seed stitch (you know, squishiness, interesting texture to look at and touch) without the extreme tedium.
If you're looking for helpful hints about knitting these mittens, I strongly suggest finding a good tutorial on cabling without a cable needle. I originally learned from the ones over at grumperina's. It'll make the rest of your life a whole hell of a lot easier.
Don't forget to twist those knit stitches to make em pop!
Wait! What?? Twist stitches to make them pop? I’ve recently heard of this a couple of times now. Can you go into detail?
ooh, they look fabulous! mittens in Malabrigo sound so nice and soft. even though I would only need for like a minute here in Georgia.
I responded to Terrye’s question about twisted stitches in an email, but here’s the basic explanation of this that I came up with:
You know how sometimes in ribbing the knit stitches will sort of expand open and spread out horizontally into the purls and look kind of sloppy, even though you don’t feel like you knit it in a sloppy way? If you knit a stitch through the back loop, particularly in ribbing or skinny cables (like on the or koolhaas
Looking gorgeous! Good to know that they were a fun knit to boot!
I love these! And, I actually enjoy seed stitch tedium…sometimes…thanks for the tip about twisting stitches. Great idea!
Twisted stitches are the key to these mitts! The original maypole pattern had sort of half-twisted stitches, which I quickly rectified
So glad you liked knitting them; thanks again for your astute feedback and speediness! mwah!