Sunday, December 7, 2008

Christmas is coming and my machine is getting a workout!



I've been working hard on Christmas preparations. Did three solid days of power shopping and spent a ton of money. Now I'm doing stocking stuffers and ornaments. The easy stuff. I'll have a few patterns to share. Here's the first. It's an easy, cute and fast thing. The mittens are only 1 1/2" tall when made on a standard gauge machine. You don't need to have a ribber. You could try them on a different gauge and get larger mittens, of course. No need for an ornament hanger because you would just drape the mitten strings over a branch. So far I've made 3 pairs, but I'll probably get sick of them soon. I was thinking they would be cute as a topper for gift packages as well. 10 minutes max for a pair of mittens!
Machine: Standard (could use midgauge but mittens would be larger)
Yarn: Any that works with your machine. These were made with Mary Lue’s Symphony
Gauge: doesn’t matter
Finished size: Mittens are about 1 ½ inches in length
Directions:
E wrap cast on with white, every other needle, left needle 7 to right needle 10. T3, knit 10R weighting knitting with your fingers. Hang hem on empty needles. Knit one row to seal hem. Hang claw weight.
Change to red. At T 6 K 5 rows. (6 for second mitten.) Knit thumb: Put all but 4 edge stitches into hold. (For first mitten use 4 needles on right, for second mitten use 4 needles on left.) Knit 16 rows on the 4 thumb stitches, pushing the thumb stitches down with your finger so stitches don’t pop off. Hang a hem from the first row of the thumb.
Hand: Take machine off hold. Knit 11 (10) rows across all 17 needles. Transfer every other stitch to its neighbor, knit one row. Cut 10” yarn tail. Take stitches off and gather into tip. Sew side seam of mitt and sides of thumb with the red tail. Hide yarn tail. Sew cuff with white yarn end. Hide these yarn tails inside mitt also.
Mitten strings (make 2): Pick up 3 st from cuff of one mitten. Knit one row. Set machine for slip (one part button), knit 80 rows. Put outer two stitches on center needle and bind that stitch off. Repeat for other mitten. Hide yarn tail into the string. Tie a bow with the two ends and this is how you’d hang the mittens on a Christmas tree branch. You could use these as a package decoration too.

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