in this tutorial, we're going to learn tomake these mittens. these are thrummed mittens. you can see there's a design on the outside,and there's a little bit of wool roving, wool batting on the inside to make them about thewarmest gloves in the world. there may be gloves designed by engineers for people climbingmt. everest, but these are a close second, probably the warmest thing you can knit foryour hands, for sure. if you'd like to get your copy of the patternto follow along, click the little i in the upper right-hand corner. that'll take youto my website, where you can see all the materials that you need, and you can get your pattern,and i'll list out and link to everything that you see in the video. this pattern is sizedfor kids, and women, and men, three different
sizes, and you can accommodate any lengthof hand. they're knit with bulky yarn, so they knitup pretty quickly, and i'm going to use double-pointed needles. i prefer to use double-pointed needleswhen i knit these. but if you're comfortable with magic loop, that's fine. but you'll probablywant to switch to double-pointed needles when you knit the thumb. i can't stop gesturing with my hands. i wishi had some mittens like these as a kid living in alaska. because when you're playing inthe snow, your hands get really cold, and these mittens will keep your hands not onlyreally warm, but dry inside. i was just wondering how they do in the wind. but i think yourhands are pretty insulated on the inside.
roving and the yarn, this is bulky wool. youdefinitely want to use 100% wool and 100% wool roving. no superwash, because this stuffneeds to felt together a little bit to really make the mittens ideal. roving comes in allkinds of colors and some marbled colors, and the bulky wool comes in all kinds of colors.i think it's kind of fun to see what you can put together, the different roving and woolcombinations. i've also seen some finished mittens. i justhappened to see when i did a google image search, where someone had done different colorsof thrumming all the way up the mitten, so it kind of faded in an ombre style. i didn'thave that much roving to work with. but i still think it'd be fun to work and do allthese different things, and try it out, and
see how the color combinations look together. so if you want to get your copy of the pattern,and your bulky yarn, and your roving...oh, one more thing i want to mention. last weeki put out a video that was just a short technique video on thrumming. i'll give you a link ifyou click the little i in the upper right-hand corner. there'll be a link there to that video. if you want to practice thrumming before youstart on a project, i give instructions for knitting up a swatch that includes some thrums,and you can practice thrumming before you start. but as far as this pattern goes, weare going to get started with double-pointed needles and a cast-on. i'm going to have totake these off, and i don't want to. but that's
coming up next. we are ready to get started on the mittens,and i think i'm going to give you a close-up of what one of the finished mittens lookslike on the inside and the out. so let's take a look. here is the mitten that i was justwearing, and the outside it has like this nice pattern in the mitten, and on the inside,it's crazy. there's just this wool batting all over the place. i've worn the mittens a little bit, and it'sactually kind of felted down now, and it will felt down and mat down into the glove andnot be this crazy. but you can see why it's warm. there's just so much batting in theregoing on, keeping the hands insulated from
the outside world, from the cold, cold world.anyway, i ended up putting it back on again. i really like wearing them, and it's 70 degreesin texas today, so they're not doing me any good. so what i have here are my dpns and my bulkyyarn, and we're going to get started with the cuff. the cuff is just straight two-by-tworib. but if you haven't used double-pointed needles before, i will get you started onthat. you have the option of casting all the stitches onto one needle and transferringthem over, but i like to cast them one at a time, get them right there on the needle,and i'll show you how i do it. take the working yarn, and put my thumb onthe yarn and flip, and do that right next
to the other needle. take an empty needleand put it in that loop. wrap the needle, and pull it through, and tighten it up, andyou are onto the next needle. if you click the i in the upper right-hand corner, i'llgive you a link to my long-tail cast-on video, which shows a long-tail cast-on the way thati like to work it. i think i get the best tension working it this way. i think you havethe best control. you'll follow the pattern for the size thatyou're knitting. i just have a little sample going on here to show you the techniques.so once you have everything cast on, you are ready to get going. this is a quick reviewof using double-pointed needles and getting started with double-pointed needles. set yourselfup, so that you have kind of an h going with
the needles, and your working yarn is overhere on the... whoops, just threw my needle. got it. workingyarn is over here on the right leg of the h, and so your first stitch is going to behere. now, the goal with this is to keep everything from getting twisted up and crazy. you wantto make sure all of the knots are nicely lined up on the inside. i'm going to flip this around,so the first stitch is in front of me. without really picking everything up off the table,i have an empty needle in my right hand. i'm going to go through that first stitch.grab the working yarn, and now, pick it up, and wrap that needle, and pull it through,and you're joined. everything is joined in the round. we can start working. this is knit2 purl 2 rib. so i'll knit 2, yarn forward
to purl 2, yarn back to knit 2. i give youinstructions for arranging the stitches on the needle, whoops, in such a way so thatyou always start with knit 2 on every new needle. then when there are no more stitches lefton that needle, you take the empty needle from your left hand, put it in your right,and your next stitch is always to the left of the working yarn. there's my working yarn.there's my next stitch. knit onto the empty needle in my right hand. that is how to getstarted on double-pointed needles and how to work knit 2 p2 rib. i've listed this pattern as an intermediatepattern, because it's kind of a lot to throw
in working thrums into a pattern if you'venever knit mittens before, if you're not very experienced at knitting. but if you're anintermediate knitter, chances are you have started with double-pointed needles beforeand worked 2x2 rib. so i hope you don't mind the review. you know what, i just worked one round there,because i was talking. really, what i want to do is to get started on the thumb gusset.here's the finished mitten. we have some gradual increases happening here and here to get usthis extra fabric that we need for this part of the thumb, and that's what we're goingto do. of course, this is spelled out row by row in the pattern.
after you work the 2x2 rib, you will workone plain stockinette round and increase one. i hope i have enough yarn for this. you'regoing to increase one at the end of the round. i kind of want to get this done, so the thrumslook right when we get started on the thrums. but i always leave myself a little bit ofyarn for these samples. i'm not sure that i've left myself enough yarn. i might haveto attach another ball of yarn. oh, i don't know what i was worried about. i'll be fine. almost at the end of this round, with justone stitch left on the needle, i'm going to make one. you can make one right or make oneleft. it's totally up to you. i prefer make one left. i'm going to pick up the bar betweenthe two stitches, put my left needle in there
from the front to the back, get my needlein through the back loop of that stitch, knit it and pull it through, and i've just increasedone stitch. so we've increased one stitch, and we areready to place markers, and get started on the thrums, and get started on the thumb gusset.so this round is an important round in the mittens, because it's thumbs and thrums. sothe pattern is really clear about where you put the thrums. i'm going to knit up to myfirst one, and there are lots of different ways of adding thrums to your work. aftertrying a bunch of different ways, this is the one that i found is the best. put your needle into the stitch below, andjust leave it there, because we're going to
focus on roving for a minute. i have thisroving here. when i start a thrum round, i normally pull out a few different bits ofroving and set it next to me, and i'll have them ready. i like to do that. it's totallyup to you if you want to pull that out for each one. you want to hold on to the roving kind ofhigh, so that it will pull out naturally without too much fuss, and there is the little bitof roving that i'm going to use. i'm going to pull out a few. like i said, there's thevideo i have on thrumming, the separate technique video. it talks more about the different staplelengths and how much you need for a thrum. i've found that sometimes i pull out more,and sometimes i pull out less, and it doesn't
really make much of a difference. i will addsome to it if it seems really light or take some away if it seems really heavy. but you'llsee here that i have some that are heavier and some that are lighter, and they're notgoing to make a difference in the finished mitt. there is something in the roving herethat i...there we go. anyway, back to my knitting, my needle isin the stitch below. i'm going to take a bit of the roving and twist it up. it'll comeuntwisted, but it's easier to work this way. fold it in half, and pop it over the backneedle. then pull that through like a normal stitch, but don't pull the old stitch offthe left needle. put the needle into that stitch. use the working yarn to wrap the backneedle.
then just one more step. bind off the thrumstitch over the last stitch you knit and tighten it up. you can see, ta-da, a little rovingstitch. knit up to the next one. i'll show you this a couple of times here. there's thestitch below. i put my needle into the stitch below. this is one of the reasons i like double-pointedneedles, because you kind of get this little tripod effect, and it holds it there. take the roving, twist, twist, twist. foldit in half. pop it over the back needle. pull that through like a normal stitch, leavingthe old stitch on the left needle. put your needle in there. wrap it with the workingyarn, and then bind off the roving stitch over the other stitch, and give it a littletug. you don't need to tug it like crazy,
because you definitely want it to look goodon the front. but you're able to adjust it if you do overpull. watch me work a couplemore of these. whoops, i lost it. now, every row isn't roving. so it's justonce every few rows, you work a roving row. they will take a little bit longer to work.whoops, i don't think i bound up. i didn't work the last part of that stitch. if yousee a roving stitch on the needle, you didn't work the last part of it. here we go. i'mactually thinking ahead to the next part, if you can't tell. a couple more stitches,and then we're going to get started on the thumb gusset. so to get started with the thumb gusset, i'mgoing to need a couple of stitch markers.
so i've put that on there, because we're goingto want to mark those stitches. then i'm going to do a make one left, just like i did onthe last round, pick up the yarn between the two stitches, put my left needle in from frontto back. i like to put my right needle in the front and roll it over to the back toget my needle into the back loop of that stitch, wrap it, and pull it through. so i just increaseby one, and now, i want to thrum. there's so much going on right here. place a marker.make one. do a thrum. now, i want to make one right. i pick up theyarn between the two stitches, put my left needle in from back to front, and then knitthe stitch normally through the front loop. then place a marker, and you'll continue onfollowing the pattern. you'll continue on
for the rest of the round with knitting thethrums. usually, what i like to do is to finish a row and then finish the following row, andthen i can really get a look at the thrums and see if i need to tighten them up or anything.there's no disaster. you can actually go back even when the mittenis completely finished and tighten up a thrum, or if it looks too tight, you can always justput a needle in to loosen it up a little bit like that. again, the pattern is written outrow by row for the whole thumb gusset for each size. i definitely want to show you thetechniques though, so you can see how it's worked. you want to follow the instructionsto finish the thumb gusset, and up next we are going to reserve the thumb stitches.
once you finish the thumb gusset, we're goingto reserve those stitches, and then the last thing we do when we're making these mittensis go back and knit the thumb separately. but for now, we're going to reserve the stitchesand then continue knitting the hand. let's go ahead and take a look. i am ready on thislittle mitten to reserve the thumb stitches, and you're going to have a lot of stitchesbetween the markers at this point. well, let's just do it. this is actually a thrum round,but i'm not going to do the thrums on this round, because i just want to get to the technique.so i'm just going to straight knit it and not put thrums in. knitting up to the marker is what i'm doing.when you get up to this marker, remove the
stitch marker, and take a piece of scrap yarnin a different color and a tapestry needle, and slip all of the stitches between the twomarkers onto the scrap yarn. those are your thumb stitches, and they are just going tohang out on this scrap yarn until you come back to them. so now, you see how this is.all the thumb stitches are there. let me get this better. the last stitch weknit was here. our next stitch is there. it's kind of a long distance, but you see theycan squish together no problem. but i am going to cast on one stitch over the gap, and i'mgoing to use the backwards loop cast-on to do that. i take the working yarn in my righthand, put my thumb or working yarn...this is not my right hand. this is my left hand.
i take the working yarn on my left hand, putmy thumb on the yarn, and flip, then put the needle into that loop on my thumb and tightenit up. you see, i've cast a stitch on. it's kind of a lame cast-on stitch. it's reallythe only cast-on that we can use in this case, but it doesn't have a knot under it or anything.but it works in this case. then i am just going to continue working therest of this round, which like i said is a thrum round. i'm just not thrumming as i showyou these techniques. but i want to show you what this looks like with the reserve thumbstitches. we actually have something that is beginning to resemble a mitten. you cansee how it would fit on a hand, at least. there is the thumb, and we're going to knitup the rest of the hand.
when you do, you'll have something that lookslike this. i have a little, tiny mitten here that has a lot of batting in it right now.the thumb stitches are reserved, and i'm ready to...oh, let me back up a sec. you'll knitthe hand the length that you need it, and this is all spelled out in the pattern. thenyou have some shaping to do at the top, and that's written out row by row in the patternas well. the last thing we want to do is kitchener stitch and graft these stitches together. so i cut the yarn, leaving about a 12-inchtail. i didn't need to leave it that long, but i did. take your tapestry needle. lineup these stitches on two double-pointed needles, and the first two stitches i'm going to doare going to be setup stitches. i'm going
to go into the stitch on the front needleas if to purl and the back needle as if to knit. now, i'm all set up. now, there's four steps to this, and thisis what i say to myself when i do it. you work front needle, front needle, back needle,back needle. this is what it looks like. knit off, purl, purl off, knit, that's the sequence.knit off, purl, purl off, knit, and after you finish the four stitches, the four steps,you can really give it a tug. knit off, purl, purl off, knit. knit off, purl, purl off,knit, and when you get to the last two, just knit off, purl off, ta-da. you can tighten it up, and then stretch itback out again a little bit. everything is
kind of square and awkward-looking at thispoint, but as soon you get a hand in there, everything puffs up. what do we have next?next up, we are going to knit the thumb, and i'll show you how to fix the gap at the thumband how to treat the thrums inside. we are ready to get started on the thumbs.i'm thinking, "don't get confused between thumbs and thrums. they sound a lot alike."but we're going to knit the thumb part of the mitten. let's go and take a look. last we left off, you had the hand finished,and we have these stitches held on scrap yarn. so you're going to take your double-pointedneedles and transfer those stitches onto the double-pointed needles. you just go in asif to purl, and the pattern tells you exactly
how many to put on each needle for the sizethat you're knitting to make it easier when we get into shaping the thumb. you know, whati don't have is yarn. that's probably important. now, i have yarn. now, this is kind of a mess. it's not goingto be a mess in a minute, but you can see it's so few stitches. if you're using magicloop, you're probably going to have an easier time working with double-pointed needles thanwith the magic loop. this is a little trick that i always do. anytime i'm knitting thethumb on gloves or mittens, i always start here. i always start at the crook of the thumbhere. that's always the beginning of my round, and i don't have to mess with stitch markersor anything, because i always know that this
is the beginning of my round. so that's going to be my first stitch. i'mgoing to put my needle into that stitch, grab my working yarn, wrap it. i grabbed the workingyarn, and folded it over, and took that loop. wrap the back needle, and pull it through,and i have attached the yarn. there's just a couple of things going on here. the firstrow is actually a thrum row, but i'm not going to be working thrums, because i want to showyou the techniques used. the thumbs go really quickly. there just aren't a lot of stitcheshere. once you get to the last stitch, one littlething we want to do, which is to pick up a stitch over the gap. you remember, we caston a stitch right there, and we can pick up
a stitch from about the same area. but whenyou're looking at this, you want to try to pick it up from an area where it's not goingto stretch out like crazy. like if you pick up this one strand right here, that's certainlygoing to stretch out. that's going to make a big hole. i'm thinking that this will be a good placeto pick up a stitch, because i'll pick up a couple of strands there. but i'm going topick it up, and i'm going to take a look and see how it looks. pull that through, and thengive it a tug, and that looks pretty good. for bulky yarn, i think that looks prettygood. then i'm going to tie the working yarn to the tail end, and then just keep goingaround. i'll follow the instructions and add
the thrums where i need them, and then eventually,there'll be some decreases to shape it. i will tell you this. don't get super hungup on where the thrums are going when you're knitting the thumb. the thumb doesn't reallyneed a lot of them, because it's not a very big piece. don't add any thrums to the hand-shapingor the thumb area in a decrease stitch. just work the decrease stitch without a thrum init. you'll end up adding a thrum later, and it'll all work out fine. i did not get toohung up on it, and everything turned out fine. so the last thing i want to show you is thisdreaded gap. because anytime you're changing directions in knitting, the same thing, weget them in socks, we change direction, and we end up with this massive hole here, andwe've got to close that up. but luckily, we
have this end here from the thumb where weattached the yarn for the thumb. so i have my tapestry needle, and it's easiest... this glove is so tiny, and there's so muchfluff inside. but it's easy if you can get the glove on, then you can see exactly...ami leaning into the picture? because i'm really trying to get a good close-up. this mittenis too small for me. i am just going to whip stitch, is it called whip stitch, whip stitcharound, making sure it looks good to close up this hole. if it doesn't look good, i'mjust going to take the stitch out and try again. so i'm going to go through two stitches overhere, a v over here and a v over here. so
far, so good. it is looking pretty good. thatlooks good. each stitch, i am evaluating. that one did not work. i actually createda bigger hole. but this is the way it goes. you just watch every stitch. there isn't likea super tried and true formula, because when you're changing directions in knitting, somedifferent things, you might have a tighter stitch or a looser stitch. so you want toalways take a look. now, i'm here. ta-da, that looks really good.i am happy with that. i can just weave in the end. that gap is closed. oh, this mittenis way too small for me. we are done with the mittens. oh, there is one more thing iwant to show you. well, actually i can just talk to you from here. we don't have to takea close-up. when you're completely finished
with the mitten, you will have something crazylike i showed you at the beginning of the video, where all of this stuff is just fuzzyand crazy all over the place. this is what i did to get them fitting reallywell. turn them inside out, and just straighten the thrums out a little bit. a lot of themwill be tangled together, because they've been kind of felting together the whole timeyou've been knitting. but just kind of straighten them out, and they'll look even crazier fora bit. then take the iron. take just a regular steam iron, and without pressing down, justkind of blast steam into the thrums, and then just kind of smash them down. that will helpeverything start the felting process and compacting down, so that it's not crazy.
i'm thinking that especially if you're givingthese gloves as a gift to a kid, they're going to have a tougher time getting their handthrough it if it's all super-crazy like this. then once you get that done, once you've feltit down...on this mitten, i just spent maybe 60 seconds total steaming it and felting itdown. you can see i have something much more compact here, and it would be much easierfor me to hand this mitten to a kid, and they'd be able to get their hand inside. but eventually,with wear, all of this really mats down, and you end up with just a super-warm, thick mitten. anyway, i hope you enjoy making these. pleasepost your pictures to ravelry and tag the pattern. i always check and look at people'sfinished objects. i really like to see them.
good luck.