Loom Knit Mittens

This is the first time I've tried to make anything on a loom and leave it to me to attempt mittens instead of something simple like a scarf.  And just to add a little extra pressure to myself I was making them as a birthday gift for my sister!

The problem, at least as far as loom knitting goes, is that most two needle patterns create a gusset for the thumb and this is done in the middle of the work.  When working on a loom doing increases or decreases means that you have to shift all of the stitches one-by-one  to the next peg for every change in the number of stitches. 

After several hours of frustration trying to accomplish mid-row increases I frogged the work and tried just adding the same number of stitches  to each end of the pattern and then pretending the gusset was in the same location.  Here is the result:

As you can see this was not successful.  My best guess is that I misinterpreted which rows I should have selected as my "right-side".  When knitting on the loom there is no purl row to accomplish a stocking stitch.  If you knit one row and then purl the other it looks like the garter stitch.

After several failed attempts at adapting a two needle pattern to the loom I finally stumbled upon this pattern called Great Fit Knifty Knit Mittens.  Since it was written specifically for a loom it was much easier to follow.  My only challenge was that measuring the work is much harder to do on a loom then on needles.  So I ended up with mittens that would fit a giant's hand.

Since at this point I was basically out of time (and patience)  I decided to knit a removable liner for the fingers.  This fills in some of the mitten and has the added bonus of making it warmer.

Over all I am satisfied with the results and I have definitely learned a few things that I will do differently next time.  Like use the gauge and a row counter to figure out size rather then trying to use a tape measure on the knitted work!


knitting