When I first looked at these I thought they might be half mittens with the top open. Something about the flat top and the thumb placement I think. They are not half mittens. The pattern says to procure 1.5 oz of brown Berlin fingering and a No 12 crochet needle. I found a few mini skeins of brown fingering weight yarn in two shades that equaled 1.75 oz and a 2.75 mm hook (The equivalent size according to the Bell gauge). The mittens are entirely made up of single crochet and slip stitches in the back loop. It makes a nice stretchy fabric that probably does an excellent job of holding heat in. This was pretty simple and everything was going ok until I got the part that said, "repeat these two rows till 51 rows are done, or till the mitten is the right size to fit round the hand". I don't have large wrists but it took 72 rows to get it to fit around my wrist. Are they sure these are for a "Gentleman" and not a small child? I pulled out another mini skein in brown mini skein; I could see this was going to take more than the 1.75 oz I had ready. Then I got to the thumb. The thumb was a little weird. It's done in a short row technique but it also seemed a little small. I started sewing up the first one and noticed that the thumb placement was a little off. In the illustration it was almost all the way down to the wrist band but my version was oddly placed. I took out the thumb and redid the count so it was lower and since I'd pulled it out, I added a few extra rows. In the photo below you can see how far up the thumb is. In their illustration the thumb goes all the way up to the top of the mitten. Is your thumb long enough to be even with your fingers? This is also the point where I realized how short the hand part was. The hand portion of these is about 5 1/2 inches and my fingers stick out a little. I ended up adding three extra rows in the thumb and putting a little cap on the top after I sewed it together. I should have done the same thing for the top of the mitten but I just seamed it with a row of single crochets per the instructions. My alterations made them fit but just barely. Instead of seaming the top to make it look like their illustration, I seamed it so the mittens are the same and it doesn't matter which hand is which. If I were to make these again (I won't) I think I'd go up a yarn and hook size. Using sport weight yarn would help with the sizing issue. The thumb will still need to be placed a little lower on the seam but it would at least solve one problem.
On to the scoring: Is the pattern easy to understand? Yes... it's wrong but easy to understand. 0.75 Does it look like the illustration? Sort of. 0.50 Would someone wear this? For it to be comfortable they'll need hands slightly smaller than mine but I suppose it's wearable. 0.75 Did I enjoy making it? Yes. I chose a yarn and hook that worked pretty well for working in the back loop of slip stitches. It can get kind of tight sometimes and this worked well. I did get a little annoyed at the weird thumb placement but I figured it out. There were a lot of moments that I just laughed because it was so strange. 1.0 Total Score 3.0
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AuthorI'm from Minnesota and have been crocheting since 2003. I inherited a box full of Workbasket Magazines from my mother-in-law and became obsessed with the vintage patterns. Archives
June 2024
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