Winter Snows: January MKAL

I had so much fun with our Mitten Garland Advent Calendar knit along, I’ve decided to host another knit along in January. Since January is National Knit Mitten Month we’ll be knitting a pair of mittens that I call Winter Snows.

Here is what you need to know…

• Clues for the mitten will be released on four Mondays, January 4, 11, 18 and 25 at 8:00am central time.
• Clues will be available for download here on Just Crafty Enough. There will be links to the clues on the Ravelry project page and in the Winter Snows MKAL forum.
• Past clues will stay up even after new clues are released.
• The pattern will be available in three sizes, 7in/17.8cm, 7.5in/19cm, and 8in/20.3cm wide with appropriate lengths. I will also give tips on changing the length for people with shorter or longer hands.
• There will be a chart and a written pattern. These mittens feature and all over pattern rather than a picture, think of something like a Scandinavian sweater.
• Skills needed to make this mitten are knitting in the round, stranded colorwork, picking up stitches, increasing and decreasing and kitchener stitch.
• I will include some help with skills like doing a peasant thumb along the way.
• The mittens will have a ribbed cuff and peasant (after thought) thumb.

And here is what you’ll need…

• Three colors of fingering weight yarn with enough contrast that you can tell them apart when knitting. I am using Knit Picks Palette in White, Marble Heather and Asphalt Heather.

• You’ll need approximately 38g/177yds of your main color (marble for me), 16g/75yds contrast color 1 (white for me) and 14g/65yds of contrast color 2 (asphalt for me). This is based on the 7.5in size, the larger size will require more.
• The design has a winter motif and does feature snowflakes, so think about that when choosing your colors. That doesn’t mean you can only use grays and blues though, think about all the colors that get used in Scandinavian sweaters.
• Size 1 needles or size needed to get gauge. I knit in the round with 4 double pointed needles but you can also do magic loop if you wish.
• Scrap fingering yarn in a color that shows up well against your main color. Just a small piece 10″ – 12″.
• Tapestry needle

How do you get started?

• Hit the knitting store or your stash and pick out your yarn.
• Knit a gauge swatch. This pattern is written for a gauge of 10 stitches and 12 rows per inch knit in colorwork. It is REALLY important to get gauge to get the stated size of these mittens. I often have people tell me my mittens are too big only to find out they are not knitting at the right gauge. Knitting a little bit of a chart like this will be a good way to see if you like your colors together and check your gauge.
  
• Join our knit along forum.
• Start a project page for your mittens. You can use our Winter Snows MKAL placeholder.

I hope you’ll all join us for some fun winter knitting!