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I donít have any kids, but Iíve heard from my sister who lives in Alaska, who has two
kids, that once you put thumbs on a pair of mittens, itís totally useless.
No one actually takes the trouble of putting a tiny babyís thumb inside the thumb part
of the mitten.
So Iíve designed these little mittens to be thumb-less, which is both practical and
very knitter friendly because we donít have to go back and knit the thumb.
And these mittens are made to match this tassel hat, and in these videos here for the mittens,
these are techniques that you can use for a lot of different patterns, um, a lot of,
really any double pointed mitten or glove pattern.
But if you want to follow along with the patterns that we have here, they are available for
purchase and download over on my website.
So first up weíre going to cover the cast on.
And getting started.
And I have, actually this is really good that this is a mess. Let me make this a mess.
Okay.
I have all my stitches cast on, and now I need to make sense of this so that I can get
started knitting in the round.
First thing Iím going to do is flip it over, because I want my working yarn to be over
here, on the right hand side.
And I know I want to make an H out of the needles.
Okay.
And actually Iím almost there. It wasnít as messy as I was hoping it would be. [laughs]
I want to separate the working yarn from the tail end, and hereís my working yarn, my
tail end is actually kind of long to my liking.
So Iím going to shorten that. Okay.
Iím looking at these stitches, and let me get that out of the way.
All the knots are lined up on the inside, and nothingís twisted.
We want to make sure nothingís twisted when we get started.
Okay, hereís my working yarn. My first stitch is always to the left of my working yarn,
so thatís going to be my first stitch.
Iím going to leave this on the table here as long as I can to keep it from getting twisted.
Iím going to slide this stitch down to the tip of the needle, getting it ready to be
worked.
And give everything a little turn so that this stitch that Iím going to knit is in
front of me.
Iím still keeping things on the table, as you can tell.
Put my needle in, find my working yarn and wrap the needle.
Now I can pick it up. Because now nothing can get twisted.
Before I pull that stitch through, I want to make sure that I have some tension on the
working yarn. Because I want to keep the gap between the two needles as small as possible.
[cough]
Excuse me.
So I knit the stitch. And we happen to be working one by one rib here, which means knit
a stitch, purl a stitch, knit a stitch, purl a stitch, all the way across.
Iím going to pull my yarn forward between the two needles and purl one.
Whoops, I just split that stitch.
And put it back between the two needles and knit one.
Forward, purl.
Back, knit.
All the way across the row. Or all the way across this needle.
Okay, now I always start ñ I have an even number of stitches on each needle, so I always
start with a knit stitch on each needle.
Hereís my working yarn, my next stitch is always to the left of the working yarn, which
means that this is my, excuse me, this is my next stitch.
Start with a knit, yarn forward, purl, yarn back, knit.
Okay. Thatís the way youíre going to do this for as many rounds as the pattern tells
you for the size youíre knitting.
Now, you need to know where the beginning of your round is, of course.
So you know when youíve completed one round.
So you donít have to keep counting one needle, two needles, three needles, like that.
Wherever the tail is, between those two needles, thatís the beginning of your round.
Hereís the tail, hereís the beginning of my round.
And once I get a little bit of work done, I can use a clippie marker, to clip on to
the work, to make it easier to see where the beginning of the round is.
But this will be enough for the first few rounds until I get some going.
And thatís how youíre going to get started.
Youíll follow the pattern for as many rows as you need to do.
And next up, weíre going to cover decreasing and shaping the top of the mitten.
So these mittens look like little paddles, so we have very little shaping before we close
up the top, there really isnít much need for it.
Um, Iím going to show you right now how to do the shaping on the mittens.
Youíve followed the pattern and you did your one by one ribbing, and then you knit every
round for as long as the pattern told you to.
And the first round of shaping tells us to knit four, knit two together, all the way
around back to the beginning of the round.
So the first thing I want to show you is how to get your stitches ready for this to make
the rest of the shaping easier.
I knit four stitches, I knit two together, I knit one, two.
I am not going to pick up a new needle. I am going to keep going so I can finish knit
four, knit two together on this one needle.
There we go.
Now Iíll start with a new needle, and do knit four. Not use a new needle to do my last knit two
together.
And then pick up my needle ñ this is just a way of rearranging the stitches without
taking the time to rearrange the stitches.
Okay, the reason that I went to this trouble is because itís going to make it much easier
on subsequent rows.
So I did knit four, knit two together, knit four, knit two together, and two repeats of
that fit on the first needle, one on the second, and one on the third.
And now the next row Iím going to knit three, knit two together.
So knit three, knit those two together, knit three, knit those two together.
And everythingís going to fit, I wonít have to transfer any stitches back and forth on
any needles for any of the subsequent rows.
Thatís just a little trick that makes it a lot easier when youíre doing decreases
like this on mittens, oe hats, or anything like this.
Next up Iím going to show you how to the kitchener stitch to close up the top of the
mitt.
Are you surprised by how quickly these little mittens are going?
Not only do baby things go quickly, but when youíre knitting a little thing for a baby
ñ not only baby size, but tiny, it ends up being a really quick gift to knit, doesnít
it?
This last part is, uh, the kitchener stitch here at the top of the mitten.
Weíre going to use the kitchener stitch, which is a way of grafting the stitches together
where there is no seam on the inside, so nothing uncomfortable on the babyís hands.
And it looks perfect, just like knitting on the outside.
And this is how it goes.
Iíve put the stitches on two double-pointed needles, half on each needle.
The beginning of my round is here. I donít have a clip marker anymore, in here, but it
runs right up here between these two needles, half and half.
And I have broken the yarn and left myself about an 18 inch tail.
And I threaded the yarn on to this tapestry needle.
Now Iím going to line everything up, get it close to the tips of the needles so I can
get going.
The first thing Iím going to do is to go in as if to knit, I need to hold it like this,
go in as if to knit on the first stitch on the front needle.
Then take that stitch off the needle.
Go in as if to purl on the next stitch on the front needle, and leave that one on.
Now we switch over to the back needle.
Go in as if to purl, take that stitch off.
Go in as if to knit, and leave that stitch on.
And I usually give it a tug, after that last, that fourth stitch.
So thatís the pattern, weíre going to go through it again.
As if to knit, off.
As if to purl, leave it on.
As if to purl, take it off.
As if to knit, leave it on, and give it a tug.
This is what I say in my head when I do this.
Knit, off, purl.
Purl, off, knit.
One more time.
Knit, off, purl.
Purl, off, knit.
And then youíll finish that across the whole row, and youíll see, it looks perfect, itís
beautiful. The kitchener stitch is a great way of grafting stitches together.
So youíll make two of these mittens, of course, and if you are looking to give it as a baby
shower gift itís nice to give the mittens in a set along with the hat.
The last thing that youíll want to do after you finish knitting these is to block them.
And I think a cute way of presenting them is to block them out into little paddle shapes.
Um, theyíre cute that way. Theyíre practical, anyway, theyíre going to go around the babyís
hands and keep them warm, regardless, but I think theyíre the cutest in this little
paddle shape before you give them as a gift.
And thatís it. Good luck.
[music]