One mitten

[elizabeth_mn]

Yay!



Finished this last night. I made lots of modifications to the pattern, Fittin Mittens, which is really only a sort of template anyway. I made the hand narrower as I went up, I shortened the ribbing, and I started the thumb gusset lower. Mostly, what I tried to do was make the mitten shaped more like my own hand. And it fits pretty well!

The greatest modification I made was changing the top from square to round. Using what I learned from this Knitty article about shaping sleeve caps, I rewrote the top decreases to blend the angles.



Square top, pointy top, round top.

The squared-top mitten is directly from the pattern and decreases 2 sts on each side every other round, then uses kitchener stitch to graft the top together. (My pink mitten, above, is old and cruddy. You can see the square top better in my red mitten.)

For the pointy-top mitten, I decreased 2 sts each side on every round, then k2tog all around on the last round.

For the round-top mitten I drew the curve I wanted, then broke that curve into straight segments to figure out how severely to decrease and where and for how long. I ended up decreasing as set in the pattern - 2 sts on each side - every other round for 3 cycles, then decreased as set every round for 3 rounds, then I k2tog all the way around for two rounds and threaded the yarn through the last few sts.

I like it and I'm eager to start the next one.  Mittens are fun!  I'm dreading the time when I can look in the closet and say to myself "Okay, I think I have enough mittens now."