This is the second in our series to get you ready to start the Twelve Days of Christmas Mitten Garland. A few people have mentioned they’d never worked some of the increases, decreases or Kitchener stitch this pattern calls so this post will go through the different ones. I’ve done picture tutorials (click on any of them to see them bigger) and included links to videos.

Increases

backwards loop -This is one of the simplest increases (and cast-ons). After looking at some tutorials, I realized I do it slightly differently, so the pictures here show how I do it. Here is a link to a video (go to single cast-on) with how I think most people do it. (I think my way makes a tighter stitch.)

Make One Increases – These are two of my favorite increases, they give you shaping in a particular direction and are less visible than others. We’ll use them for the thumb gusset.

You can find videos for both these increases here.
m1l (make one left)

m1r (make 1 right)

Decreases

Like the make one increases, using ssk and k2tog create decreases with direction. We’ll use them to shape the top of the mitten and thumb.

You can watch videos on there here.
k2tog (knit two together)

ssk (slip slip knit)

Kitchener Stitch

A lot of people are intimidated by the Kitchener stitch which we will use to seam the top of the mitten hand and thumb. You are doing the same things you do in knitting and purling, just with a tapestry needle. It creates a great invisible seam. My best tip is to do this seaming when you have time to concentrate, so you can keep track of where you are in the series of stitches. If you need help remembering the order of the stitches, some people find it useful to have a notecard in front of them with “Knit, slip, purl. Purl, slip, knit.” written on it. I couldn’t photograph this stitch in a way I thought would be helpful, so here is a video tutorial.