Knit & Knag Designs

Happy New 2011!  I hope you’ll all have a wonderful year, filled with new knitting adventures.

During the holidays, I decided to take a small break from my usual lace knitting and knit something different for a change.  Since hockey season started in the end of August this year, I’ve been wanting to design and make a pair of fingerless mitts, so that I can knit while the kids are at hockey practice, without freezing my hands off.  So I finally decided to cast-on for that project.

My fingerless mitts are knit from the finger-side down towards the cuff, and the thumb is knit afterwards in the opposite direction.  There are no individual fingers on the mitt, because I think that would get in the way when I knit while wearing the mitts.  I want to be able to snake the yarn between the fingers for even tension while I’m knitting, and I don’t want it to be caught on the mitts.  The cable pattern reminds me of the marks left on the ice by skaters – perhaps more from figure skating than hockey games, ha ha, but the scratches left after a hockey game wouldn’t be quite as visually appealing.

The palm of the mitts is just plain stockinette, as I think that anything too patterned would be uncomfortable.

I used Swiss Mountain Sea Sock from Handmaiden (51% silk, 29% merino, 20% seacell – 437 yds per 100 g) in Topaz and 2.25 mm needles for this project, and it knit up quite quickly over a couple of days and during some of the tournament games my kids played during the Christmas break.  And now I’m ready for the rest of the hockey season and can knit my way through all the practices and games without getting so cold.  I look forward to it!