Sunday, October 09, 2005

If you've been inside your local Target lately, you may have noticed them selling yarn in their $1 section. If you're like me and thought, "Yay! Cheap yarn!" only to get it home and have no idea what to do with it*, may I humbly submit my suggestion:

Two-Dollah Mittens action shot

Fabulous Two-Dollah Mittens

Need: 2 skeins pink boucle Target yarn
A few yards of yarn in a complementary color
Size 4 double pointed needles
crochet hook
tapestry needle

This size will fit a ten-year-old girl, but it also happens to fit me (a medium-sized adult girl). You can adjust your size from there. It's two dollah! What you want for two dollah?

Cast on 30 stitches. Divide stitches equally over 3 needles. Join and work the next 1.5 inches in this exaggerated garter stitch as follows:
R1&2: Knit
R3: Purl
End on a purl row.

Work in 1x1 ribbing (K1, P1) until your mitten cuff measures about 3 inches total length. Increase as follows:
[Increase by knitting into the front and back of the stitch, K9]3 times. Knit the next round. Continue increasing until you have 39 stitches.

Work the first 6 stitches of your first needle. Move these stitches to a safety pin or stitch holder. Knit the rest of the round. When you come back around to the held stitches, cast on 6 stitches and continue knitting until total mitten length is 9 inches.

Decrease the next row: [K1, K2tog]repeat to the end of the round. Knit the next round. Divide stitches equally over 2 needles so that the mitten lays flat with the thumb on the left for the left-hand mitten and thumb on the right for the right-hand mitten. Graft these stitches together and weave the end in inside.

Thumb:
Put the 6 held stitches on a needle. Knit these stitches. Pick up 8 stitches around the thumb hole. Knit in the round until thumb measures 2.5 inches or the length of your thumb. Decrease [K1, K2tog] to the end of the round. Break yarn, thread through stitches, cinch, sew a few stitches over the top to secure, and weave the end in inside.

Flower:
I would love to tell you how to make the flower, but I have completely forgotten. Just know that it's a simple chain stitch and that each petal is a chain 5 stitches long. Sew flower to wrist cuff using main color yarn.

*Under no circumstances do I recommend actually purchasing this yarn for this project. It's incredibly unfriendly to work with and impossible to undo mistakes. If you make a mistake, you're best off just shrugging it off and living with it. Honestly, go out and buy a skein of some Lion Brand or Red Heart. You'll use about two dollars' worth of it and be much happier.

1 comment:

lauramacf said...

woo-hoo! Your instructions came just in time for the other mitten knitter (say that 5 times fast) in the klatch. I have the ribbing done on the first knitten (as I've come to call them since attempting the tongue twister above) I'm making for my mother-in-law. After that I've been botching it, trying to remember what you told me about your pattern last week. I'm saved! Thanks.