Reservoir Mitts
Finished
September 25, 2014
December 17, 2014

Reservoir Mitts

Project info
Reservoir Mitts by Allyson Dykhuizen
Knitting
HandsFingerless Gloves/Mitts
Gifts (Pam P. & Louise P.)
Needles & yarn
US 3 - 3.25 mm
US 4 - 3.5 mm
349 yards
Loops & Threads Elegance
1.2 skeins = 192.0 yards (175.6 meters), 60 grams
2820
Pink
Michael's
October 6, 2014
Loops & Threads Elegance
0.06 skeins = 9.6 yards (8.8 meters), 3 grams
2823
Michael's
December 15, 2014
Premier Yarns Deborah Norville Serenity Garden Sport
0.8 skeins = 148.0 yards (135.3 meters), 52 grams
JoAnn's Fabric & Crafts
Notes

The yardage given is for two pairs of mitts.

I was able to get exactly 10 entrelac panels out of two skeins of the Premier Yarns Serenity Garden yarn. (And I mean exactly. I had to steal a few yards of matching yarn from my stash - I have no idea what it was - to finish the 10th panel.) Four of the panels were used for these two pairs of mitts. The other six were used for other projects (these mitts and these gloves). The length of the color repeat was such that I did not end up with any 2 panels that matched exactly, but when paired up in the order that I made them it was pretty close.

I made a few modifications to the construction of these mitts. Rather than bind off the palm portion, seaming (leaving the hole for the thumb) and then picking up stitches for the thumb, I bound off 6 stitches at the cuff end and 10 stitches at the top end and left the center 14 stitches live. I placed the live stitches on waste yarn and seamed the top and bottom bound off stitches to the entrelac panel. Then when working the thumb I placed those 14 stitches on my circular needle and picked up 16 more stitches along the entrelac edge (14 along the side and 1 additional stitch at each end), for the total of 30 thumb stitches. This eliminates the seam on the palm side of the thumb. I felt the thumb was rather large, especially compared to the snug fit of the other fingers, so I decreased an additional 2 stitches twice several rows after the round of thumb decreases included in the pattern. I added one more stitch to the ribbing section beginning and ending the ribbing with 2 knit stitches to make the seaming easier. (I used a sort of modified Mattress Stitch seaming the side edge of the ribbing to the edge of the entrelac.)

In previous versions of this mitt I picked up 2 additional stitches for the pinkie finger to give a little more comfortable fit, but even with those 2 extra stitches I often found that the pinkie finger felt very tight at the base while the other fingers did not. (I swear I do not have exceptionally fat pinkie fingers.) I think I have determined what was causing this to occur. The pinkie finger is started immediately after picking up the stitches at the top of the hand while the remaining fingers are started after an additional 2 rounds have been knit around the top of the hand. Those picked up stitches at the base of the pinkie don’t have the freedom of movement afforded to the other fingers by those extra rows of knitting. For these mitts I knit one round after the picked up stitches before beginning the pinkie. The combination of the 2 extra picked up stitches and that extra round of knitting prior to beginning the pinkie seems to have made a world of difference. These are the most comfortable mitts I’ve made so far from this pattern.

These mitts were made on a 47” US size 3 circular needle and size 3 double points. I used a US size 4 to bind off, and used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off for the ribbing.

viewed 26 times
Finished
September 25, 2014
December 17, 2014
About this pattern
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About this yarn
by Premier Yarns
Sport
100% Microfiber
185 yards / 65 grams

6579 projects

stashed 5139 times

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About this yarn
by Loops & Threads
DK
100% Acrylic
160 yards / 50 grams

831 projects

stashed 758 times

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  • Project created: December 19, 2014
  • Finished: December 19, 2014
  • Updated: December 31, 2015