Flip it!

 So I was working on Amelia’s fingerless mitts a few Saturdays past at my moms. Saturday is laundry day. I take my laundry over to moms and spend the day with my sister, her two kids, my parents and Nate. Jazzy was trying on Amelia’s mitts and she said she wanted a pair. My sister said she was too young to have fingerless mitts outside; Amelia was older and wanted the mitts for fashion. I told Jazzy I would make her some mitts when she was older. During lunch we were looking through the 101 Designer One Skein Wonders book I was using and Jazzy said she found something she wanted me to knit her and her mom would like it too. She wanted a pair of convertible mittens that way she could have the fingerless mitts and the mittens she needed to wear during recess. Since it is Naknmimo and I was competing I decided I would make her the mittens.

I used Bernat’s Softee Baby in a pastel variegated. I had a skein left over from when I did the Girlfriend shrug a few years ago. The yarn is a DK weight acrylic you get 333 yards per skein which can make two pairs of mittens easily. It is pretty soft and machine washable which is good for things that you knit for littler kids. They knit up pretty dense on a size three but not too bulky. The pattern is pretty fussy when you get to the point where you start to add the flip top. It seemed to work better when I held the stitches on yarn and instead of a stitch holder. I liked the fact that the flap is knit on not sewn on it makes it sturdier and warmer. The fingers are one opening with a full thumb which makes it easy for kids to put on themselves. I used some flexible rubber type buttons that had penguins on them. The penguin was wearing a hat, scarf and mittens which was endlessly funny to Jazzy. The flexibleness makes them easy for little fingers to manipulate. She is able to flip and button them herself while on. I think if I make them again I would consider using magnetic snaps that would be the easiest and you wouldn’t have a look on the top when the mitten is closed. If you have a mitten sucker like Nate was it could get pretty gross!

Overall a quick knit that resulted in a pair of mittens that made a little girl feel more like a big girl without resulting in cold fingers!

In other news I finished Under the Volcano By Malcom Lowry. It was 11 on the list. I started I, Claudius by Robert Graves this weekend and am enjoying it so far. Under the Volcano was tense and emotionally draining it is very dramatic but worth the read.

Links

Flip top mittens (rav link)