Jane’s Endpaper Mitts

Again inspired by a Eunny project, I used her Endpaper Mitts pattern to create my own version. It's spring and fingerless gloves are in order. But mostly I really liked the pattern and could instantly see it arise from some lovely grey brown and barely blue yarn that my brother donated to my recent addiction to Fair Isle. This is my third Fair Isle project.

I ended up reknitting these gloves 3 times. I restarted the first time after completed one whole glove realising I didn't want them to be so long and that I wouldn't have enough of the brown to complete both gloves. The second time was because I realised I was being quite paranoid about wrapping the yarns around each other and it created quite a stiff fabric and made the pattern harder to see. I couldn't quite bring myself to not wrap at all, despite reading that I didn't need to and my brother assuring me that it wasn't necessary. It really boils down to me just not liking the strands of yarn stretching across the inside of my gloves. That's the sort of thing that causes a fingernail to grab and pull when putting on the gloves. I can't have that.

I did modify the pattern a bit. Not so much ribbing. I'm more a fan of shorter ribbing to frame things these days. So to start with I did 10 rows of ribbing. Then along the top of the hand I did 5 rows of ribbing and 3 rows along the top of the thumb. I made the gloves shorter by only repeating Chart A once (instead of three times) and then starting the ribbing right at the end of the shaping Chart B.

I REALLY loved learning another cast on method. Italian tubular cast-on is now my favourite way of casting on for ribbing (as it should) and Kitchener rib bind-off my favourite way of binding off ribbing (as it should). And I was quite impressed with Eunny's clever inclusion of a solid brown knit row before beginning the ribbing at the top of the mitts. I'm sure this is fairly standard in the land of Fair Isle, but it never would have occurred to me.

If I were to make these mitts again, I would reduced the number of stiches before the ribbing at the top of the hand. I like how flexible and expandable the ribbing is, but don't like how there is a big opening at the top now. And they have relaxed a bit to be a little larger, so I would probably make them on smaller needles as well.