macro mitts

There’s so much to catch you all up on—TNNA and VK LIVE—but I knit! I knit! And I can’t hold off on showing you my first finished object of 2011.

My online BFF Lauren has really taken off as a designer, and she’s always coming up with clever little projects, which is just my type of project. A while back she posted a picture of a WIP that had a thumb gusset to die for and an off-center motif that I loved so much, I volunteered to be a test knitter.
macro mitts!

She took me up on it, and did so at the perfect time—the weekend after TNNA, when I was staring at yarn I’d come home with and wondering what to do with it.

The yarn is Manos Rittenhouse, a worsted-weight merino 5-ply. It’s so soft and a little bit squishy; I’d picked coordinating colors deliberately, but I had had no pattern or project in mind. Colorwork mittens turned out to be just the thing!

macro mitts!

The Macro Mitts are written for a bulky yarn, but Manos Rittenhouse is NOT bulky–it’s definitely worsted. Since the finished size for the Macro Mitts was a bit large for me, at 8 inches in circumference—my hands are closer to 7 inches—I used a size 8 needle (instead of bulky and a size 9), and that sized them down perfectly. I added a few rows above the cuff as well as to the top of the mitten, above the star, because my row gauge meant I needed a few more rows to get the same length. But that was an easy modification.

Another modification I made was to add more rows to the cuff instead of adding a second Latvian braid (though you can’t see the cuff at all in the photos). Turned out I found knitting the Latvian braid so abhorrent, I could only bring myself to do it two times, not four. I just added 2 rows to the cuff to account for the loss of the braid.

macro mitts!

The stranding of course makes them super warm, and the squishy Rittenhouse makes them super comfy. I didn’t get a pic of the thumb gusset, my favorite part, because I was forcing my boyfriend to shoot these while I was on my way to Vogue Knitting LIVE (which I was working, as a member of the SoHo Publishing staff—more on that soon!) and, as you can see, it was pretty damn snowy out. But go to the mitts’ Ravelry page and see it for yourself there!

I’ve been wearing them since I finished them—each took me approximately 3 hours to knit, so I had them done over one weekend—and so many people have stopped me to compliment me on them!

16 Responses to macro mitts

  1. Jessie says:

    These look great! I might give the pattern a whirl with your mods – I’ve got tiny hands, and some worsted I think will be perfect for this project.

  2. Ashley says:

    a) I’m super mad that mine aren’t done yet, because they are WARM and I want to wear them.

    b) I have been feeling smug that they seem to be fitting my giant hands so well, so it’s cracking me up that you used worsted, because of course. I’m about to cast on after this for a fingering-weight pair of Adrian’s in worsted. HA!

  3. specs says:

    aha! So glad they work on worsted w/ only a one size needle difference for small-ish hands because I have A LOT of worsted and no bulky.
    (and I am so in love with that thumb gusset.)

  4. Denise says:

    Hey Erin,
    The mittens are beautiful. It was so great meeting you this past weekend. I hope you got to meet Cookie A after all. Again thanks for the great cowl pattern and videos. Hope to see more from you soon.

    Denise/Earthtones Girl

  5. Miko says:

    well i saw them firsthand (pun completely intended) and they are pretty lovely. i actually think the modeling holding onto the suitcase is not a bad way at all of showing them off!

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