Mitts and Armwarmers

I’ve been making gloves, fingerless mitts and arm warmers for a while.  I think each have their place and arm warmers can be especially useful for small children who are likely to be too busy with their hands for gloves.

Long Arm Warmers with Thumb

This pattern I made up as I went along.  I wanted long arm warmers that I could wear with some of my elbow length tops in those times when it’s not quite cold enough for a full jersey or sweatshirt, but too cold to go without something.  I like having the thumb in to keep them in the right place, but I can pull my thumb out and push them up my arms when I’m doing something that will get them dirty or when I’m feeding out hay (because you really don’t want hay all through anything knitted!)

Long Arm Warmers with Thumb

2 50g balls Ascot 8ply yarn - I’ve used Perroquet

3mm sock needles - 2 sets or 1 set and 3 stitch holders.

Cast on 72 st and distribute evenly around needles.

Work 10 rounds k1 p1 rib.

Work 4 rounds knit.

Dec 1 in next round and every foll 4th round until 48 st remain.  Try to keep dec stitches in line.

K 7 rounds.

Shape Thumb

1st round: At start of needle, inc 1 in first st, k2, inc 1 in next st, k rest of round (50 st)

2nd round: knit

3rd round: knit

4th round: knit

5th round: Inc 1 in first st, k4, inc 1 in next st, k rest of round (52 st)

9th round: Inc 1 in first st, k6, inc 1 in next st, k rest of round (54 st)

Cont in this manner until there are 60 st.  Knit 1 round

Divide for thumb

Shorter Arm Warmers with Thumb

Using a second ball of yarn, k15, turn.

P15, turn

Cast on 3st, k across cast on st and other 15st, set up rounds on second set of sock needles or transfer other st onto stitch holders.

Knit 5 rounds.

K1, p1 rib for 5 rounds

Cast off loosely in rib.

Return to base of thumb, pick up 3 st along inside of thumb.  As holes often form here in gloves, pick up an extra st in between picked up sts and k2 tog.

Knit 6 rounds

K1, P1 rib for 10 rounds.

Cast off loosely in rib.

To Make up

Sew yarn ends to round to even up the line, fasten off and weave yarn ends into inside of work.

Notes:

I like to knit garments like this using circular knitting as there are no seams to sew at the end, especially using a yarn like the one I have used, there is no need to panic about matching up stripes.

Working the thumb with circular needles can be a bit tricky to begin with, but makes a far better thumb to traditional knitting.

The easiest way to keep your decreases along the arm length in line is to make it the start of one of the needles.  The same with the thumb shaping.

Obviously, you can adapt these to any length you want.  I’ve also made these little ones that are basically five rows with the ‘feathers’ yarn and start with then the thumb shaping.

If you wanted to make this pattern with two needles, just decrease one stitch at the start and finish of every fourth row.