Mitten Question

Hi All,

I'm new at mitten making, and am having trouble following the pattern. I was wondering if any of you could help.

I'm at the place where I need to make the opening for the thumb, and the instructions read:

Knit 1, place 10 stitches on waste yarn or safety pin. Knit through the rest of the round. Next round, k1, cast on 10...

If I do as instructed, I will have to carry my working yarn across the

10 stitches of waste yarn, in order to continue the round. Won't that long float be a problem inside the thumb?

What's up with this?

Hesira

Reply to
hesira
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Hesira i weant to help , [ i am a regular mittens knitter] but don`t understand the instructions , Do you knit flat or in the round ? I knmit mine in the flat , make a cuff than knit 2 cm [ usually about 4 rounds ]plain than i strat kniting building up my thumb , in my pattern the thumbs have no right hand left hand ,, i arrange the st on the 3 dps half on one and a 1/4 on each of the other needles ,, , put a marker i go on knitting in the round this way . make a st, k1, make a st, knit 2 rounds . make a st k3 make a st knit 2 rounds make a st k5 make a st knit 2 rounds make a st. k7 make a st knit 2 rounds , make a st , k9 make a st knit 2 rounds make a st k11, make a st knit 2 rounds ,,, now when you come to the 11 new st. move them to a safety pin or other yarn Make 1 st and knit on till your mitten is long enough cover the shortest finger , now you start to descreas for end of mitten. knit together the 2nd + 3rd stich at begining and end of the needle with half the stichces , and on the parallel side of the 1/4 needles. [each only one decreas. knit 2 rounds and decrese again , every 3 round you decrrease thus 4 st , till you are left with 4 -6 on both sides , this you can decrese at once. go back to thumb , take all 11 st on 3 dp s ,, make one on the te base of the one st made for the upper knitting , knit in the round till you get to the nail , k 2 togther [makes 6] all round k one round , k 2 together all round [ makes 3 ] cut thread , put on in [sewing] needle`s hole , collect the 3 stich , turn thumb inside out pull thread tight to close thumb . sew neartly turn again ,,, you have a mitten ,,,,, you are welcome to use this mirjam

Reply to
mirjam

Reply to
mirjam

I would knit the 10 sts first, then put them on a holder.

sue

Reply to
suzee

Thanks for the info, Mirjam. I will have to sit down and read through it carefully.

Hesira

Reply to
hesira

Thanks, Sue. I ended up doing as you say: I knitted the 10 stitches with scrap yarn and put them back on the left needle, and continued in the pattern. I don't intend to cast on the 10 stitches on the next round. When I finish the hand, I'll cut the scrap yarn and put those stitches on dpns and make the thumb. I made one mitten before using the method I just described from a different pattern.

I still don't understand how I could do the thumb as instructed in this pattern. If you put the stitches on a holder, you have to carry a long float across those stitches.

Hesira

Reply to
hesira

I also just realized the original pattern was written in French. Maybe the instructions were clouded in translation.

Hesira

Reply to
hesira

Yes, that's a good alternative - you don't have to do the CO sts that way, your waste yarn is both a stitch holder and a CO.

Some patterns are poorly written; in this case it probably should have been written as knitting the 10 sts, THEN putting them on a holder. Some pattern writers actually do that in practice, but assume knitters will do the same, so they don't put it in that way.

sue

Reply to
suzee

You're probably right and it's just poorly translated or poorly written. Still, I just had an idea: maybe they put the float across and then, on the next round, they use the float as the base yarn to cast on the ten stitches, by pulling up a loop alternately on each side of the float. Then when they pick up stitches to knit the thumb, they pick them up from the (very taut) float and get very tight stitches.

Would that help prevent the gap that so often happens with mitten thumbs?

=Tamar

Reply to
Richard Eney

Tamar in my experience [ and pattern ] i never have a gap between thumb and body of mitten as it is knitted in one `go`,,,, mirjam

Reply to
mirjam

That could be too. Some of the hardest patterns to figure out are the Drops at garnstudio.com; I think they're translated from swedish or norse, and the english versions are doozies to understand sometimes. But the items are very nice and well worth struggling to understand the pattern.

sue

Reply to
suzee

I know what you mean. I've eyed those Drops patterns, but rejected them after reading through the text. One of these days I'll decipher one and see what happens.

Hesira

Reply to
hesira

They've now started putting some in American english terms, which helps if you're not familiar with British terms. But go ahead and start one, there's lots of help available here and on other forums.

sue

Reply to
suzee

Hesira,

I see you've already found a work-around for this. But since you are still curious about the original intention of the pattern...I wonder if you're meant to pull the yarn you're calling the "float" taut across the stitches that have been set aside. So, it's not really a float. It would work better with the stitches being on a piece of waste yarn rather than a stitch holder since you've be able to bend the fabric to really pull the yarn across tightly. Am I making any sense? Do the instructions have you picking up stitches for part of the thumb later on?

It's been a while since I've done any mittens but I seem to remember the pattern I did being similar.

LauraJ

Reply to
LauraJ

Laura,

I considered that, but I was confused by what would happen with the 10 cast on stitches. The way I visualized it was: I pull the thread tightly, knit around, get back to the point where the stitches were on scrap yarn and then cast on 10. Do these 10 CO stitches go towards the body of the mitten, or the thumb? I probably should just do a sample swatch and see what happens, but as I said, I used a different method for making the thumb, and continued.

I appreciate the help, though.

Hesira

Reply to
hesira

They would be for the mitten hand.

sue

Reply to
suzee

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