I introduced a little project, the fingerless mittens, last week and have worked on developing the pattern further. After finishing one of the mittens, I decided the gauge wasn’t quite right. My original fabric was much too dense and rather tight on my hand. I wanted the mittens to be used, regularly and comfort is import.
I’ve officially called the mittens, ‘Miss Mitchell’s Gardening Mittens’. This is a reference to my fictional Folk Art Doll, Arabella Mitchell. She is a piece of Art but inspired by a real person. The actual Miss Mitchell was a teacher at my sons First School and is a favourite character for me. She famously has a little red heart on her face and is known for giving out these little hearts, as a token of love. I’ve used the character in lots of little children’s stories as well as other art media samples. This time, with my mittens, I’ve used the hearts as embellishments. The hearts have been made from scratch using dry felting techniques. The hearts are stitched onto the mittens (from the back).
My mittens pattern is very simple and can’t really be called a pattern, it’s simply an oblong shaped piece of knitted fabric. A side seam, using Mattress Stitch, creates a mitten (leaving a gap for a thumb). However, the gauge and size can be slightly tricky (I needed two attempts with this sample) depending on the weight of the yarn. My second mitten design used a larger needle and I added a few more stitches. I also used a particular cast on and cast off technique to improve the fit.
I’m going to add a few more knitted items to make a little Miss Mitchell Collection. I will add a hat, a Buff and some Wellington Boot socks. When I get the whole Collection together, I’ll share the patterns here on my blog. Each item will use the same yarn (check out the label in my photo story above for details) and each will include a red heart reference, probably a mix of knitted hearts and felted hearts.
Thanks for calling in today.
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