More Mitten Musings

The color pattern in this pair can be found on mittens from Estonia; and from Gotland, Sweden; from New England - and I'm sure from many other places as well. It's easy to see why it has traveled so far. It's handsome, the small repeat makes it simple to adapt to many sizes and gauges, and it is very easy to work.

Here's the chart.

The cuffs are done in a diagonal ribbing that I got from Aina Praakli's Estonian Mitten's All Around The World.  It is almost identical to the "fishtail" pattern Nancy Bush has in her book on Estonian folk knitting. The only difference is that Praakl uses a P2tog where Bush uses K2tog.

So, on a repeat of six stitches you can either *K2, yo, k2, k2tog, rep from* or *K2, yo, k2, p2tog, rep from*. If you change colors every 4 rounds or so you get a mock entrelac effect. (some self striping yarns will also work well for this).

BTW: At the Sheep & Wool Festival last Saturday I saw a cap done entirely in this stitch and it was very cute indeed. I only wish I had paid more attention to how the top decreases were worked out.