Mittens on dpn

#1

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I am working on mittens(first pair on dpn). I must say it has been an adventure. I have completed one except for the thumb(I decided to leave the thumb stitiches on the stitch holder and finish the second mitten, the go back and do the thumbs). Back to the question…pattern reads; pick up & k 3 stitches on mitten ede above thumb…not sure what that means.

then you join and knit around and decrease 2 sts above the 2 sides of thumb where sts were picked up. help, these instruction totaly confuse me sometimes… :shrug:

#2

:?? What pattern are you using? Can you give link?

#3

guess I will be showing my illiteracy here… the pattern is in a booklet.
Better Homes and Gardens from Scarf to Poncho. Don’t see a link anywhere in the book :wall:

#4

I think I understand what the first part is saying.

The stitches on the holder for your thumb kind of represent a hole in the fabric. If you think of that hole as a slit, there are some corresponding stitches above it. (You probably cast them on after you put the thumb stitches on a holder.)

So you’d pick up and knit those stitches. Amy has a video of picking up stitches, if that is giving you trouble. It’s on this page: http://www.knittinghelp.com/knitting/basic_techniques/misc.php. Scroll down to find the video.

I’m not quite sure about the other part of your question – I’m having trouble visualizing it. Maybe once you have the stitches on the needles it will be more obvious to you. If you picked up stitches other than the three in your first question, that might be where the decreases are – it might just be a way to eliminate possible holes by having you pick up more stitches than necessary, then decrease them out so you have the right number for the thumb.

Hope some of that at least helps.

#5

thanks for the info, the first part of your reply was helpful, I can’t quite get the other part either, it may have been my explanation, but we’ll see how it goes!!

thanks again for the reply, I can use all the help I can get. :slight_smile:

#6

What a coincidence! I had this same problem on my first pair of mittens last week.

Let me see if I’m visualizing this correctly: you have a mitten which is complete except for 10 or so stitches on one side which are on a stitch holder. Between the completed part of the mitten and the holder is a hole for your thumb (if you stick your hand in the partially completed mitten, your thumb will stick out of there).

If that is correct, then hopefully my advice will be helpful. I think the pattern wants you to pick up the stitches around the edge of that hole so that you are knitting a circle around the entire hole. The stitches you have on the stitch holder now only make up one side of the thumb, and only half a thumb is not very useful in winter weather. However, by picking up the stitches you are making a nice circle all the way around the thumb, thus creating a complete (and warm) thumb.

As for decreasing, unless you’re a perfectionist I don’t think that it’s crucial exactly where you knit the stitches together. I agree with BillSpace; you’re just decreasing to compensate for the stitches you picked up. You do need to pick up a bunch of stitches because if you didn’t you’d have holes on the base of your thumb. Imagine if you just picked up one stitch; you would have two enormous holes on either side of it. Therefore, you pick up a lot so you don’t have this problem.

Because you picked up a lot of stitches along the edge of the hole to create the thumb, if you continued to knit all of them the thumb of your mitten would end up quite thick, thicker than it needs to be. Therefore, you do need to reduce the number of stitches.

I hope that this wasn’t all completely confusing. It’s hard to describe this sort of thing if the person’s not sitting right next to you.

Good luck!
Rebecca

#7

thanks Rebecca, what you said, did make sense to me, guess cause I’m in the midst of working on the mittens. I have 9 stitches on a holder and am only supoosed to pick up 3 but, I’m pretty sure that will fill in the whole. how did your mittens turn out?

I do tend to be a perfectionist, but I will try my best to let that go when I do the thunbs. I have ripped out two completed(all but the thumbs) while working on these mittens. The first rip out was because I chose to do the 2nd size because I knit very tightly…well, they were way tooooo big for the person I was making them for. The 2nd rip out was after I completed the 2nd of the pair and realized that I made mistakes in the top of it. Although they weren;t terribly noticeable, I couldn’t stand it. So I am working on it again. I have ripped out and restarted more times than I can count. But I WILL finish them!!

again thanks for your help!