Rock Candy Mittens

Hi everybody, welcome. How's everybody doing? I'm doing pretty good today and I am very excited to be showing you guys how to make this um mitten design. So, um. I'm so glad you guys are here and of course this is a live event, so as I'm walking everybody through how to create the mitten, I'm gonna be talking, you know, about all the steps you need to know.

I'm gonna be doing all the demo all the way through um just definitely let me know if you guys have any questions or if there was something that you missed or um even if you just have comments or other things that will help other crafters, you can put all that stuff in the chat. That would be really awesome. Um, and also, uh, there is a free pattern associated with this event. So this is the Rock Candy Mittens. It's a free download, um, free to everybody, and, uh, you can go ahead and download it now so you can follow along as we're walking through the pattern.

Um, if you don't have time or don't feel like doing it now, you can definitely do it at any time later. It'll just still be here waiting for you. Um, OK. All right, well, welcome. Oh, looks like we've got a comment already coming in from Laurie in Ohio.

Hi Laurie. Um, she says, hi Brenda, I'm having so much fun learning from you. I don't understand what the point of wrapping the working yarn around my finger is. Oh, OK, is it just to help it around the hook or is there a. Bigger point to doing it.

I wanna be sure I'm not missing something. OK, I bet you're talking about the way I hold my yarn, um, and we'll get into that a little bit more, you know, I'll kind of circle back to that as I start working on stuff, but, um, that is just how I hold my yarn. If that's not how you want to hold your yarn, you can hold it in any way that is comfortable for you. The reason that I hold it that way is because that's that's the way that feels the most comfortable to me and I am able to get um the attention that I need on the yarn so we'll talk a little bit more about that as I start working my way through, but that's a good question um you might, you know, if you watch other people. You know, demonstrate things or other crocheters or whatever.

Lots of people hold their yarn in all kinds of different ways. There's no wrong way to do it as long as you know your stitches are working for you and everything seems comfortable. That's, I mean, you just do it however you wanna do it. You don't have to do it the way I do it. OK, all right, you guys, um, I love making mittens.

I don't know why, um, I've never had like the second mitten problem, you know, how people talk about second sock syndrome or whatever where you make one thing and then you don't ever feel like making the second half of it to create the pair. For some reason I don't have that problem with mittens. I think I just really love mittens and usually when I'm making mittens, I'm making them out of a heavier weight yarn, you know, like a worst of weight or sometimes even a bulky, so they seem to go really quick. These mittens are very simple. The construction is very simple, um, and the stitches are, you know, they're easy to do.

It's fairly repetitive, so you can just kind of focus on where you need to put shaping, but nothing, this is not a difficult project. This is, I would say this is like. Advanced beginner or intermediate project, um, but I don't wanna scare anyone away if you're like, oh, do you think I could do that? Well, of course you can. You just have to, you know, have a little more patience with yourself when you're learning the stitches and, you know, kind of soaking up all the information as you go.

So. Um, the cool thing about this stitch pattern, OK, so actually we have two stitch patterns going on here. The, this stitch pattern down here, this is a very stretchy elastic stitch pattern. It weirdly looks so much like a one by one knit ribbing. Like it looks like knitting down here to me, and it's very, it really returns to shape very well, um, compared to lots of other kinds of ribbings that I've tried in crochet.

So I, this is one of my favorites. I always kind of come back to this one. And then this, um, so this is done with a yarn over slip stitch, um, worked in the back loop, and we'll get into that in a little bit. And then the main section of the mitten here, the body of the mitten as I like to call it, this is made in something called a knotted double crochet. So this is, um, or if you work back and forth and turn rows, sometimes the stitch is called the herring boat half double crochet, so it's the same motion, um, but this has worked all in the round and it.

Creates a very, very textured nubbly stitch pattern. That's why I called it the rock candy mix because it's so bumpy it reminded me of rock candy, um, but the cool thing about this is even though it's kind of grippy and bumpy and kind of fun on the outside, it is extremely smooth on the inside, like much smoother than a single crochet, you know, worked and turned rows would be. So it feels nice on your hands. It's kind of like the perfect stitch, um, plus it's stretchy. It has some give to it.

It's just, I, I don't know, it worked out really well for these mittens, so I'm excited to show you guys this stuff. All right, so, um, let's talk about the materials. So, uh, first of all, and, uh, you may have seen this in the description or also in the pattern download if you've already checked it out, but. I am using a yarn that I hand dyed myself. This is like a speckled dye process.

I dyed it with Kool-Aid and if you would like, if you're interested in trying that out, um, I did a tutorial a few months ago where I dyed actually this ball of yarn in that way, um, with with just Kool-Aid. It's very inexpensive so if you've ever thought, um. You know, oh, I'd like to learn how to die, but I don't know. It seems like I don't really want to invest in, you know, all the equipment that I would need, and I don't really, um, you know, or if you're concerned about, you know, the hazards of using chemicals, well this just uses Kool-Aid, which you can literally drink, so makes it much safer and it is a very fun project to do. I did this with my kids, they loved it.

Um, and I know that there, if you've never done this yourself before, I'm sure that many of you are having your doubts about whether this is actually color safe or not if you're gonna wear these mittens and come out with Kool-Aid striped hands, and I can tell you that it is extremely color safe. I, I would not believe it. I would not have believed it if I hadn't been doing this myself. Like I, the first time I did it, I was absolutely shocked and now I understand why, you know, so many people like doing this, um. Anyway, it's a very fun process if you guys want to check it out, um, the live tutorial is still up, um, it will always be, uh, available for you guys to watch.

So that was called, let's see, Speckle ying with Kool Aid, I think was the name of that live tutorial, and it is linked in the pattern. Um, I did put a link for that in there in case you guys are interested. Anyway, of course you don't have to use a speckle. You don't have to dye it yourself. You can use any yarn.

This is, um, well, any yarn that's gonna get you the right gauge, I should say. This is a 100% wool. It's a merino wool. It is a one ply, but you do not have to have a one ply or merino or wool. You could substitute with acrylic or something like that if that's what you have on hand.

Um, it just needs to be a thicker worse. Yarn or an Aaron weight yarn, um, which is what this is. So, uh, otherwise when you crochet it up if it's just a regular worsted weight yarn, it's probably either going to turn out too small or you're gonna have like a little bit of air between your stitches which in mittens is I, I don't, I don't like that. I like my mittens to be stitched up at a very firm gauge. So that's something to think about.

So something like this should be a number 4, but like a heavier number 4, or a number 5 would might even work. Maybe a chunky yarn, if it's a little on the thinner side would work. Oh, we've got some more hellos. um, we've got a high from Buffalo and Luis saying hi hello, um, and we've got a high from the UK and also Brazil. Hi you guys, thanks so much for saying hi.

I appreciate that. It's always fun for me to see where everybody is watching from it's kind of amazing. All right, so, OK, so we, we talked about the yarn. Let me go back into about how much you need. So, there are Let's see.

I think there's 5 sizes here. 1234566 sizes, 12345. Yeah, 6 sizes. OK. I had forgotten.

Um, this is sized for basically a child that's about 4 or 5 years oldish that size hand up through an adult extra large. So it's a very wide range of sizes, um, so you can pick your size. So depending on what size you're making, you will need between 145 yards or up to 211 yards for the very largest size. Um And um so you'll need the yarn, you're gonna need a crochet hook, and I am using a G, which is a 4 millimeter hook, um, but you will use whatever hook you need to in order to meet gauge or to get a mitten that fits your hand, um. I, I, I just want to tell you that this is a smaller hook than I normally use for this thickness of yarn.

So if you already have an idea in mind what you would normally use for like a heavier worst weight yarn, pick something that's smaller than that to start out doing your gauge swatch with because um this is something where you'd want to be crocheting up of, you know, fairly tight gauge. Um, you'll need a tapestry needle and a couple of stitch markers and make sure that your stitch markers, you can distinguish them from each other. So I've got a red one and a green one here. Normally when I am working in the round, I really like to use a red stitch marker for the beginning of my round and then other colored for the other, um, whatever else I would need to mark. If you just kind of designate something in your mind all the time as the beginning of your round, it just makes things a little easier.

Or maybe you have like a larger stitch marker, you know, for the beginning of your round. If you, if all of your stitch markers are all the same, they're the same color and they're indistinguishable from each other, you can use two stitch markers at a time to mark the beginning of your round, or you can put a little something on it like, you know, you could mark it with a Sharpie or do some other way, do some other thing, but you have to be able to distinguish the beginning of the round stitch marker from everything else. All right, that's it for materials. That's, that's all you need. Basically just yarn and hook.

Um, and, uh, OK, and then we're gonna get started working on the cuff. So I did wanna mention to you that if you are new to reading a pattern that I did do a live tutorial on um walking people through all the different parts of a pattern just to give you like a little bit of extra help if you're unfamiliar with you know how patterns are written, you know, crochet. Uh, patterns can be really kind of confusing when you're first starting out. You're learning all the lingo and um trying to figure out what all those brackets and parentheses and all that kind of stuff means. So, um, you can go ahead and watch that live tutorial if you're having any problems with the pattern itself or, you know, ask me questions.

OK, so we're gonna start with the ribbing. I'm gonna begin with this yarn here. And I'm gonna work up. We'll start with the smallest size here. So, um, if you look at your pattern, it says ribbing, and then it says chain 9, and then all these other numbers, these are for the different sizes.

I'm making the smallest size, so I'm always going to be looking at the number in front of the parentheses. Um, so these sizes will correspond to the sizes that are listed right here. So in the same order, that's those are the, you know, corresponding numbers that go with the same sizes you see here and also the finished measurements that you can see here, um, in order to choose your size. So I just wanted to let you know that in case you weren't, didn't know what the, the parentheses mean, but there's more like I said, there's more information on that in that, um, live tutorial. OK, so we're just gonna start with a slipknot on our hook.

So however you do that. And then we're gonna chain 9 for my size. So, And then we're going to start with the 2nd chain from the hook, and we're going to work into the bottom of our chain. So if you look at the chain, there's a bunch of theses kind of going in this direction right here. If you roll that over, then you'll see all these little horizontal dashes, and those are, that is where we are going to work under for our stitches.

So here's the first, the second horizontal dash, remember, because we're skipping the first stitch, working underneath the second one, and we're going to do a yarn over slip stitch right here. So to do that, we're just going to yarn over, insert our hook, yarn over, pull up a loop, and then we're going to pull that same loop through the two loops on our hook like that. That's our first yarn over slip stitch. Let's do that again. So we yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up our loop, and pull that same loop through the two loops that were on our hook.

Yarn over, insert yarn over, pull up and pull through to. You aren't over insert, yarn over pull up and pull through too. So if you guys have been crocheting for a while and you like to do half double crochets, this motion is very similar, but your body is gonna make you want to do another yarn over here and pull through all three. So just try to pay attention, especially at the beginning that you're not making accidental half double crochets. I think that's the most common, um.

That's the most common mistake when making the yarn over slip stitches to just accidentally make those half double crochets. All right, so we're going to chain one at the end of our row, and I like to chain one fairly tightly in this stitch pattern, and then we're going to turn our, our work like we're just turning a page in a book. And now we're going to work yarn over slip stitches all the way across um the next row, but this time instead of working under both loops right here, we're gonna be working under just the back loop, OK? Oh, and I should mention in this pattern when we make that turning chain that is never going to count as a stitch. We're just never gonna work into that.

So you're just going to make that turning chain, skip it, and work. Into that very first stitch and you're going to work into the back loop, OK? So we aren't over, insert under the back loop, yarn over, pull up a loop, and we're going to pull through those two loops on the hook. yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up, and pull through the two loops on the hook. OK, so we're just going to continue that all the way across.

We've got some more good mornings coming in. Um, looks like we've got, oh, Molly saying hi from Saint Paul. Hi Molly. Um, Elaine says good morning. Oh, and Cindy's here.

Good morning. Just finished a pair of knit mittens last night. It was so nice to see the yarn you dyed make. It's returned to a project. Awesome.

Cindy was here for that one. I just got a sampler box of undyed yarn from We Crochet and plan on trying your method to dye it. Awesome. Oh, that sounds fun. Cool.

OK, so I'm just making those yarn over slip stitches all the way across. To the end. In that back loop. OK, so there we go, then we'll chain one, and I like to chain that pretty tightly, turn our work, and then we would continue doing the same thing. So yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up and pull through too.

So one thing that helps me when I make the yarn over slip stitch, you can see me doing this. I'll yarn over, insert yarn over, pull up, and then I pinch my fabric right here to kind of help me get that loop through those next two loops. You don't have to do it that way, um, but it's just, you know, my hands always kind of hop over to hang on to the fabric in a different spot right there. Pinch and pull through too. OK.

So that's all you're going to do. You're going to go back and forth and back and forth, and you're basically making a long rectangular strip. OK. And your piece should look About like this, so we've switched to a different color way here. This is, this is the yarn that I dyed during that live event, and to me it looks so much like funfetti.

It just is making me hungry for a cupcake. All right. So, for my size, I did a total of 25 rows. Um, you'll do more for the larger sizes, of course, and that is all listed in your pattern. So when you get to that last row, um, and you'll notice when you do, when you finish with an odd numbered row, so like a 25 or the other, all the other rows that you finish with, um, 27, 29, 31, all of those are odd numbered rows and odd number of rows from here to there, um, and you'll notice your hook is on the same side as your beginning yarn tail.

OK, so that's a little clue that you just did an odd number and so if you're having trouble trying to figure out how many rows you have here, just. Know that these sort of um peaks and valleys, so like this is a ridge and then there's a valley between a ridge and a valley, so every time you see those ridges, that means you've done two rows. So here's a valley, so that's row 1, row 2, row 3, row 4. OK, so you can count by 2 is if you just count the ridges, so 2468, 1012, 1416, 1820, 22, 24, and then that last little valley is 25. OK, so now we're going to steam this together by using a slip stitch.

We're going to chain one, and we're going to turn our work as if we're going to work another row. Then we're going to fold this in half. We're going to bring the foundation chain, which is where we started, right in front of the last row that we worked, so it's sitting in the front here. And then we're going to stem this through the back loop of the row in front and the back loop of the row behind it. So what that means is, and then also don't be fooled, this ridge kind of wants to pull forward a little, so make sure you know that those V's should be sitting up on top of your edge.

Those, those V's right there, that is the chain that we did uh when we made that foundation chain, it's right there, OK? So we're gonna. Put this right in front of the last row we worked. We're going to insert our hook through the back loop of the row in front, and then we're going to insert our hook through the back loop of the row and back, grab that yarn, pull through both, and then pull through the loop on our hook. That's our first slip stitch, and we're just going to continue doing that all the way across, just going underneath the back loop of each layer.

And pulling that through that loop on our hook, OK? OK, a couple more stitches left. And you should have the same amount of stitches in the front row as in the back row here. So it'll just match right up. OK, and that slip stitch row is going to end up on the inside of your mitten, so you're just going to turn it like this and see how that just kind of blends in.

It looks like all the other little grooves, especially after blocking. When once you block that, it'll look even more so. OK. And so now we are going to start working around the top edge of our ribbings. So that's kind of like the side of our, the side edge of what we had crocheted up before.

So we're going to do round number one is going to be a round of just single crochets. Let's see, here we are. So, um, body of mit, this is where we are in round number one. Um, let's see, one single crochet into each row end, and then we end with an additional single crochet in the valley between the first and last row and edges. So what that means is we're gonna crochet into the ridges and the valleys.

OK, so one here, one there, one here, one there. So each ridge and each valley gets a single crochet, and our last single crochet would be here in this ridge, and then we're gonna do an additional one in this little kind of. Valley, basically between the first ridge and the last ridge, right there. OK? So, we're gonna start out in this very first ridge.

We're gonna place our hook right in the end of it, right in the top of this V up at the top here. And we're going to just make a single crochet. Oops, let me, let me explain single crochet. So, we'll insert our hook, yarn over, pull up a loop. Now, we have two loops on our hook, we'll yarn over and pull through 2.

And then place a stitch marker in that first stitch so you can keep track of it. I gotta get a little more caught up here. We've got. Let's see. Oh, Michelle is saying hi from the UK.

Hi Michelle, and Anita says hello from cold Milwaukee. Yeah, it's cold here too, very cold, um, great time to make warm mittens, agreed. OK, uh, Donna is saying, good morning, cute mitten is at a DK weight yarn. This is a heavy worst or an Aaron weight yarn, so it's a little bit thicker, like a thicker number 4. So it's thicker than a DK weight, um, and we have a hello from Jordan.

Hello and hi from Devon. Uh, is that in England? You'll have to let me know. I can't quite remember. Um, and then we also have another, hello, hello to Ola Amir.

Hello. All right. So we're working our way around to, um, around this very first round of our mitten, uh, the round of the body. So we did our first stitch right here in that ridge. Now we're gonna do another single crochet right next to it in that valley.

And then here's a ridge. So we'll do a single crochet here. And then a valley So we're just making a single crochet in each ridge and in each valley because the ridges and valleys, those are each one row. So we're gonna work all the way around. So, you know, if you did 29 rows, you'd be making 29 single crochets here.

And then we're gonna sneak one more single crochet in at the very end, and I'll show you that in just a minute. Oh, so let me talk a little about our first question that we had was why do I hold my yarn like this, I think, um, or correct me if I misunderstood your question. You do not have to hold your yarn like this. I see, um, sometimes people will wrap their yarn around their finger, sometimes they just hold it like this, um, any way you want to, you can. You can hold your yarn any way you want to, any way that feels comfortable.

The reason that I do it this way is because to me, it's, um, I can very easily, by bringing my fingers closer together, I can put a lot of tension on that without actually gripping. Um, and I think that's part of the reason that it, like I, I don't want to be gripping something tightly because I crochet a lot, a lot, so I wanna make sure that I'm holding things like as loosely as I can but still feel like I have control over stuff. So that's why I do it this way because I have, I can put a lot of tension here without really um. Having to push my fingers together very hard at all I'm just kind of resting them next to each other and I can still put tension and then if I, you know, let let them open a little slips through. So in this way I really can um kind of regulate how that yarn can come off of my hand and kind of be fed into my project um, that's really the reason that I, that's the reason that I do it this way.

But like I said, everybody's, you know, everyone has a different body and different motions when they crochet, so you just need to find whatever feels comfortable to you, whatever, you know, allows you to be able to crochet without stressing your hands out or getting frustrated. All right, we're almost all the way around here. Here is my last ridge. And now here's that um crack between the first and last ridges. So I'm gonna do another single crochet right in there.

Like that. And now we're ready to start working in our knotted double crochet stitch pattern. So I'm going to take this marker out just for a minute here. When we do that, we're going to round number 2 as we're just making a knotted double crochet into each stitch. So we're going to start over with a yarn over, insert yarn over, pull up a loop, and we're going to pull through, just one loop on our hook.

Then we're going to yarn over and pull through the remaining two. So this is similar to that um. That's uh yarn over slip search that we were doing, except there's an additional yarn over. So, let's do that again. So, we yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up a loop, pull through the first loop on our hook.

Now, there's 2, then we yarn over again and pull through 2. All right, let's do that again. Yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up, pull through the first loop, yarn over, pull through 2. So again, this is similar to a half double crochet, except for the place where we're doing that yarn over. I have demonstrated this before and a lot of people say, commonly people will say, Isn't that just a half double crochet, but it, it's, it has to do with where you're making that yarn over.

So we, this is, you know, the beginning of it's just like a half double crochet. yarn over insert, yarn over, pull up, but at this point we pull this loop through the next loop first before we make that yarn over and we're only pulling through 2. OK, so we're just gonna continue making this not a double crochet all the way around our work. And that extra, you know, when we're pulling through that first loop, that's what makes that little knot, that little, um, sort of horizontal bump. And because we're going to be working this in the round, all of the bumps are going to end up on the front side of our work, and none of the bumps are going to end up on the back side of our work, and that's what makes it so smooth on the inside and so bumpy on the outside.

All right, let's see. Am I all caught up? Oh, we've got a couple more hellos. We got lots of hellos today. Thanks, you guys.

Um, we've got, uh, someone saying hello from uh Canada. Hi. And we've got a high from Italy. Hello, wow, you guys are from all over the place. That makes me happy.

All right, we got a few more of these, not a double crochets to do. We'll be at the end of our round, and then we're gonna start working on increases. So when we're working, if you've never made mittens before, they're kind of magical the first time you make them because it really gives you an understanding on how increases that are placed in the same place every round can create a different shape. So right now we're just making a tube, but we really want to create some increases here for our thumb so that we, you know, have more room for our thumb. I really like the kind of mittens where you have extra room for your thumb instead of like a tube with a little slit and your thumb goes through.

Those work fine, and I have lots of those mittens. It's for sometimes for certain stitch patterns and things, I will use that. Because it disrupts the stitch pattern less, um, but as far as the feel of the mitten, you know, it's I like having that extra bit of a gusset right here so that you just kind of have a room for a room to place your, um, you know, for that part of your hand to stick out and this makes it nice and close here for your wrist so it stays on really well so. All righty. OK, so now we're going to work those knotted double crochets about halfway around the mitten and then start and then make an increase and then work more knotted crochets, um, knotted double crochets around to the beginning of the round.

So here we are on round number 3. So for my size, we're gonna make knotted double crochets into each of the next 12 stitches, and then we're gonna do an increase in the next 2 stitches. So you'll have a different number for a different size. So we're gonna do 12 for my size. I'm placing my stitch marker back in here, so don't forget.

So 2. 3 For 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12, and then we're gonna do 2 knot of double crochets into the next stitch. So 1 not a double crochet, and then another one into the same stitch. So now we have 2 stitches where there was once only 1 so we've increased our stitch count and this the next stitch we're gonna do the same thing 1 and 2. OK, so we've got our 2 increases here and increases when you're just adding more stitches, you know, than you had before.

I'm going to place a different colored stitch marker in the second stitch of the first increase. OK, so let me just cover up the last, the last increase that we made here is. Those two stitches, I'll cover that up with my thumb, so we're not looking at those. So this was the first stitch of our increase. There's the second stitch of our increase so that was the first increase and we're placing a stitch marker in the 2nd stitch of the 1st increase, OK?

So that's gonna help us keep track of where to put our increases. Alrighty, now we're just gonna continue working our not a double crochets all the way around. Oh my gosh, every time I look there's someone saying hello from a different part of the world. This is so cool, you guys. We have, uh, Ola Rock, uh, Desside Argentina.

I'm not, I'm sorry if I totally butchered the name of where you live. Um, hello to Rosa Crochet. Thank you for saying hi. um, and we've got a a hello from South Africa. And oh, Donna's saying, isn't that a herringbone stitch?

Yes. Um, this is what I was saying before, when you work the stitch back and forth and turn rows, it makes a herringbone pattern, and a lot of people call it the herringbone half double crochet. Um, it's the same exact stitch. It's just that we're doing this in the round, um, and I've been calling this the knotted double crochet because I saw that years ago in some stitch book somewhere that somebody called this the knotted double crochet, and I really like that term because it doesn't actually look like a herringbone. When you work it in the round, it, um, but it is exactly the same motions it's just that you're not when when you do the herringbone stitch you get that herringbone pattern, but you only get that when you're working back and forth and turn rows because of the way that it makes that little knot.

It has to be on this side, then that side, then this side. I hope that makes sense. Um, and we have a high from Utah and then Gwendolyn is saying hello from North Carolina. Hi everybody. OK.

Uh we're almost all the way around. So on round number 4, now that we've placed our stitch marker for the increases, we will know where to make the increase and we won't have to count our stitches. So but if you are a counter, you're just going to be adding one more stitch before you do your increase if that makes sense. So here's our, we're gonna start our round number 4 by just making not a double crochets and we're going to make them all up until we get to our contrasting marker. So that's the green marker here.

So just placing one, not a double crochet into each stitch till we get to that green marker. Alrighty, 2 more stitches here. And now we have arrived at our marked stitch. So that we're going to place 2, knotted double crochets into that marked stitch. And 2 And we're going to put that stitch marker back into the 2nd stitch of that increase.

And now we're going to do another increase right here. So we're going to do those 2 knotted double crochets into the next stitch. Right there. And now we're gonna continue working the rest of the round with just one knotted double crochet into each stitch around. All right.

Almost there. OK, so then on our next round, which is right here, it says rounds 5, or depending on what size you're making, you might be doing 5 and 6 or even 5 up through 756, and 7. You're repeating the round that we just did. So that means you're just working all the way up to the marker, you're going to make 2 stitches into the marker. Or sorry, into the marked stitch, two stitches into the stitch that follows the marked stitch, OK, and then you're gonna continue making a not a double crochet in each stitch around to the end.

So you will do that either for round 5, round 5 and 6, or round 56, and 7, just depending on the size you're working on. And then for all of the other sizes, besides the one I'm working right here, you will do one more round of just not a double crochet, so no increasing at all. So that's for every single size except for the smallest size. And then after that you will do one more repeat of round 4. So that would be, you know, that's the increase increase line.

So that's where we do not a double crochet all the way across and then we do an increase or 2 not a double crochets into that marked stitch, 2 knotted double crochets into the stitch after, and then continue the rest of the way with one stitch in each stitch around. Um, and then after you've done that repeat of round 4 here, then you're gonna just do, no matter what size you're working on, you're gonna do a knot a double crochet into each stitch around. So let me show you what that would look like, OK, if we've done those extra rounds of increasing, you can see how this is getting wider with each group of increases. So we're really shaping that thumb gusset here and then that last round we ended up with, um, you know, we're just working even, meaning we put one stitch into each stitch around here. And let's see.

I'm trying to remember if I saw we've got. We've got a high from Utah, a hello from North Carolina, and a high from Florida. All right, thanks you guys. OK, so, um, we've basically finished making that thumb gusset here and then after that we're going to be working this little section here that says the, you know, whatever round it is for your size and then divide for thumb. So what that means is we're gonna, we're gonna work our way around and but we're just gonna start working around the hand portion and not around the thumb portion.

So you'll see how that works in just a minute. We're gonna um do a knot a double crochet into each of the next either 1314, 1516, or 17, or 18 stitches just depending on your size. So my size is the 13. So, we'll do 13 stitches here. So remember to keep your stitch marker in.

To 3 For 56. 7 8 9 10 11 12 And 13. And then we're gonna skip each of the next either 8, 10 or 12 stitches depending on the size you're working on. I'm gonna be skipping 8 stitches. So this is the part that was like magical to me when I made my very first pair of mittens.

I was like, I don't understand how this is going to work. And then I realized once I did it, I was like, oh, that's so much easier than I thought it was gonna be. OK, so we're skipping 8 stitches. So 1234, there's your marked stitch, and we can even take that out. 567, and 8.

OK. So actually, I'll put this mark stitch in or the stitch marker in just so you guys can keep track of where that stitch is. OK, so I counted out the number of stitches we're skipping and put a stitch marker there. And now we're going to stitch. Into the the mark or into the stitch right after the marker, OK?

And we're going to do a knot a double crochet so you might be like, how are we going to get over there? You just bring this right up next to where you were working, you just kind of pinch that and make your stitch into the next stitch. So there's my knotted double crochet, oops. Right there, just like that. Let me open it up so you can see.

I'll take this out of here too. But we just made a knotted a regular knotted double crochet into, you know, we counted 8 stitches and made a knotted double crochet into the 9th stitch there. And now we're gonna continue. Making those knotted double crochets to the end. So you can see what we did by just kind of pinching that together.

We have separated this section that is going to be for the thumb right here, and then this whole section that we're gonna be working around and around on is just for the hand. That's just one of those kind of funny things where you just have to do it once to realize what's happening and you're like, oh that's actually not hard but when you, I know for I'm not the only one who's had this issue before because I've designed lots of mittens in the past and I have gotten this question really often like I don't understand how you skip those stitches and then you keep working like I think it's just because you're not used to being, you know, you you just don't quite realize you just bring that stitch next to you and stitch into it um it's just one of those things. You just have to do it once and then you're like oh makes sense. OK, so now at this point we're going to just start working around and around and around um for the body of the mitten. So there's a number of rounds here there's no increasing or anything like that you're just working around here and you're no longer working these thumb stitches you're just gonna be working that, you know, right on top of that last round you did a number of times, um.

Depending on the size, you know, here's, it's either rounds 9 through 15, which would be for my size, but you might be going all the way up through like round number 23 for the largest size. Um, this is going to be, this is an adult small size right here. Sorry, I just wanted to show you guys some of the pretty color ways that they have in this yarn. Um, so we've switched sizes. This is gonna be adult small because I want to keep these.

um, so I have worked around and around and around my specified number of rounds here and then we're gonna start working shaping the top of the mitten. So you can always add more rounds here or not do as many if you have, if you feel like it's going to be too long or too short. It might be difficult to tell until you actually kind of start doing that shaping and put your hand in here. So I would, if you've never done this before. I would just follow the pattern unless you already know, oh, I, I know I have long fingers, you know, then, um, you know, or, you know, longer than average, like when I try on mittens from the store, they don't normally fit, um, then you could add an extra round or two or whatever you need to before you start doing the shaping.

You can always very easily pull your shaping stitches back out and add or subtract, you know, these rounds later if it's not working out. I always think of my first mitten as being the one where you figure it out and then the second mitten is the one where you're like, yeah, I know what I'm doing. OK, so now we're starting to shape the top of the mitten. So we're going to do a knotted double crochet two together. So there's lots of different ways to do this.

The way that I am going to show you this way um creates a little bit less bulk. So that's why I normally prefer this method. So, we're going to start out like a normal, not a double crochet, so we're gonna yarn over. And then when we insert our hook, we're only inserting it under the front loop of our stitch. So, here's the two loops of our stitch.

Normally, we go under here. We're going to go just under the front, only the front one. So we'll insert it under the front, and then we're going to insert under both loops of the following stitch right there. OK? So we've just inserted it through two stitches, and we're gonna yarn over, pull through both stitches like that.

And then we're gonna pull that through that first loop on our hook, and we're gonna yarn over and pull through to to finish up that knotted double crochet. And I'll show you that again. Um, right now though, we're gonna work, let's see, 9. Yeah, 99 more, not a double crochets. So that would be 1.

To 3 For 5 6 8 9 And then we're gonna do a not a double oh wait, I was looking at the smallest size who caught that? Did anyone catch that? I was so used to working on the smallest size. I actually have to keep going because that didn't make sense for me to do my my decrease here. It should be over here.

Um, for my size, I'm going to be doing 11, so I have to do 2 more. So 1 and 2, that looks better. Whew. OK, so now we're going to do another one of those same decreases. So we're going to yarn over, insert under the front loop of the next stitch, insert under both loops of the following stitch, then we yarn over and we're going to bring through both of those stitches.

So, I usually do this kind of in two steps, like through the first stitch, through the next stitch, and then we're going to go through that first loop on the hook. We're gonna yarn over. And pull through too. OK, so we've got a decrease here and a decrease here, and now we're going to repeat exactly what we just did on the backside of the mitten. So we're going to start out with a decrease.

So yarn over, insert under the front loop, insert under both loops of the following stitch. yarn over, pull through both stitches, and then pull through the loop on the hook, yarn over and pull through the remaining 2. So that's our next decrease. And now we're gonna do 11 more for this size. So you have a different number for a different size.

And that should lead us almost to the end of our round, we should have 2 stitches left. Let me put a mitten under my stitch marker there. Making too much noise. Let's see, we've got a question. Hooked on Riverside Crochet is asking to change two before turning on rows 2 to 25.

I'm guessing you're talking about the cuff. Must be, um, I am only chaining one. I'm chaining one because this, even though it's called not a double crochet, it's not very tall, it's shorter um than a regular double crochet, and I, oh sorry, wait, I'm thinking about the, the wrong thing. So the yarn over slip stitch is even shorter. It's a very, very short stitch, um, I'm because I'm guessing you're talking about the ribbing because that would make sense because that's the only place we're turning, um.

I, I only chain one there. I make one very short tight chain, and that keeps the edge looking looking really nice. So you can see we actually, you know, we see that turned edge of our that rectangle that we made right here and if you make that stitch nice and tight, it's gonna look a little neater and tidier. Otherwise there's gonna be kind of like little windows here if you make it loose or if you turn uh or if you chain two. I hope that answered your question.

Oh, yes, you say yes. OK. All right, so here we've got only 2 more stitches left of this round. So we're going to do it another decrease, the same decrease. So we're going to yarn over, insert under the front loop, and then insert under both loops of the following stitch, grab that yarn, pull through both stitches, and pull through that first loop on the hook.

Then we yarn over again and pull through 2. OK? That's our, our, our KDC2 together is how I abbreviate it in the pattern. All right, so that was our first round of decreases. And so after that, let's see for shaping the top of the min.

OK, so after that you would do one round of knotted double crochets, just one into each stitch around. There's no decreasing that happens in the following round. The round after that, we're going to do another group of of um decreasing. So let me show you what that looks like after you've worked that additional round of working even. Ignore this thumb, you're not that's not supposed to be here quite yet.

Let's see. So this is just after I have completed round number 17, or let's see. To do to do actually, this would be around 20 sorry for my size for the adult small. um I've just completed that working even all the way around and now we're doing another round of the decreases. OK, so I'll do these a little bit quicker this time.

So here's my first decrease. Place replaced my stitch marker. And then for my size, I'm going to be doing 6 stitches even. So one. To 3 4 5 And 6.

Oh, hang on a second, let me see. Oh, I must have been reading the wrong. I don't know where I got that from, but I must have been, oh, I think I jumped all the way down here. OK, sorry, that is also wrong, not 6 stitches for my size. I will be doing um 9 here.

So I've done my decrease 1234567. 8 And 9 OK, so this is this round right here. This is round number 21 for my size. OK, this is the round after we worked even after we've started the shaping. OK, so we're doing our decreases here.

We started with the decrease, we're working even all the way across until we get to that next section of decreases. So here's a decrease here. Right there. And then we're gonna do that again because we're repeating the next round. And if it helps you, um, you could put You could put a stitch marker in that first decrease that you make, just to kind of prompt you on the next round.

Oh yeah, this is where, this is halfway across, this is where we should be making the decreases, um. And that'll kind of help you keep track of stuff a little better. We you meaning me, I should have been doing that. OK, so now I'm gonna do not a double crochets, you know, for the specified number in your pattern, the same number because we're just doing another repeat of this, and then we're gonna end with two stitches right before the marker, before the beginning marker, and those two we're gonna decrease together. Into one.

All right, got one more to do here. And now we're gonna do that same decrease. So under the front loop, under both loops, pull through both stitches, and the first loop on the hook, here and over, and pull through 2. All right. So we've done our 2nd decrease round.

So you can see it's really starting to kind of come in here at the top. It's angling in. And then the next round, we're gonna do another round of decreasing. So we're gonna start off with that decrease. Whoops, I didn't do my yarn over.

Here we go. There's our first decrease. And then we're going to make yarnovs across to like basically one stitch before that marked stitch. If you didn't mark the stitch, you're just going to do your specified number that's in the pattern. For me, I'm doing 8 stitches right here before I do my next decrease.

OK, so there's my last two stitches of this side of the mitten. So we're gonna decrease those two together. Like that. Put that back in the decrease stitch, and then we're gonna do another decrease on this side, because we're just repeating that same sequence where we start with the decrease, work all the way across until we have 2 stitches left of this round, and then we're gonna do another decrease. Oh, here's our last two stitches.

Here we go. And then we're gonna do another round of decreasing for my size. Um, if you Had worked the smallest size, you would just do a slip stitch and fasten off and then you would sew up the, the tip of the mitten. Um, but for all the other sizes, including the one I'm making, we're gonna do another round of the same decreases. So that means we start out with a yarn over, insert through those two stitches, pull up, pull through, yarn over, pull through to, that same, not a double crochet decrease.

So we're gonna start out there. And then for my size, I'm going to be doing 6 stitches. So one 2 3 40, actually, the, sorry, 5 stitches. OK. Yeah, because, 23, yeah, 1235 stitches.

It's the second, um, the second number in in the parenthesis. I got a little mixed up. Oh, here's a tip. Don't do what I'm doing, and you should go through and highlight all the stitches or stitch counts that pertain to your size before you start the pattern. This is a good.

Uh, learning point here. I keep getting kind of mixed up with my numbers, but usually, um, I will go through and highlight that size that pertains to me and then you, you're not gonna accidentally, you know, keep looking at the wrong numbers how I keep doing that here, um, oops, I gotta do one more here. And do my decrease. Here we go. And now I'm gonna start my 2nd repeat of that with that decrease.

And here we are. And do my decrease here. Oops. All right. And so, let's see.

I should have a total of of. 6.5, yep. So I've got the second number. 14 stitches, 123456789, 1011, 1213, 14. OK, all right, so now I can go ahead and slip, stitch and fasten off.

So if you were doing a different size like you can see, even though I am going to be fastening off here for my size, um, if you were doing the two largest sizes, you would continue making those decreases until it tells you to stop, um, so. Yeah. So just one more round there and then you just fasten off after that. So, um, I'm gonna go ahead and cut my yarn and leave a bit of a long yarn tail, like at least 12 inches or so. And I'm going to make a slip stitch in the next stitch here.

And we're gonna pull that through to fasten off, and then this will just get whip stitched together. So, um, what I did on my mitten to make it look a little neater is I actually turned my mitten. Wrong side out in order to do that slip stitch. I'm not gonna stitch it all the way across, but I'll get you guys started because I wanna make sure that I have time to talk about the thumb, which is next. Let's see, where's that yarn tail?

Here it is. OK. All right, so in order to do your whip stitch, you just want to make sure you're folding that seam nice and flat. You know, it'll kind of want to fold that way anyway because your decreases are here and here, so it'll just kind of want to flatten itself out and then you're going to go underneath two loops of each, um, surface basically of each edge. And just do a little whip stitch all the way across.

So, I'm grabbing both loops here, both loops there. Maybe I can just, I'll just do one quick little see across. I think we'll have time. It's OK. So normally I would kind of do this twice.

I would go in one direction. And I like to pull this nice and tight because it kind of gets rid of those little corners that can happen. So I pull it a little tighter and those corners go away. And then I'm gonna do kind of a quicker job of weaving in my ends here, but. Probably weave it in a little bit better later.

Just so I can get that turned. All right, I'm gonna leave a little length on here so that I can continue weaving in my end, um, but you would do a nicer job on yours before turning it back around. And then the next thing to do is add the thumb. OK, so here's that's how the top of it looks, looks really good. Um, so I'm gonna hop back to this sample here so I can show you what this looks like.

Oh, in the directions, when we did that round where we separated the hand from the thumb, I do have a little note in there to place a stitch marker in the first stitch that you skipped, which would be right here. If you forget, it's not a big deal because you can just look at your thumb, and if you're a right-handed crocheter, you're gonna start here and go around. If you're a left-handed crocheter, you would start here and go around that way. So I'm gonna pull that out. And let's see.

Which ball can I use? I'll use this one. OK. So, to start your first round here, you can start by, I think, just placing a slipknot on your hook. Is that how I have you start it?

Let me check. Oh, OK, we're just gonna pull up a loop. I do this different ways. It doesn't really matter how you do this. I just wanted to go by, um, what I had written in the pattern.

So to just get started, I just place my hook in here and grab a loop, and then I chain one, and I like to have a fairly long beginning yarn tail because there's going to be a little gap there that you're gonna need to sew together later. And then we're going to do a knotted double crochets into each stitch of the thumb. So, including the one where you just pulled up the loop. So we're gonna do that. Not a double crochet around.

And then, when we get to the space where the thumb meets the hand, like that little corner, I'll show you what we're gonna do. Got a couple more stitches left here. There's our last stitch that we had skipped for the thumb right there. And so now, if you take a look at this, you can see there's this gap where the thumb meets the hand. So we're going to stitch into this space right here, and it doesn't need to go into a super specific spot.

I'm going to try and hold this as open as I can. Um, but I'm gonna kind of be grabbing in a couple of different areas to make this, otherwise it's gonna leave kind of a large gap. So you can do this a couple different ways, um, in the directions I tell you, for most of the sizes you're gonna make 2 stitches there, sometimes you're gonna make 3, in between. So let's see. Yep.

So, you know, depending on the size, you're gonna place either 2 or 3 stitches in this space right here. For my size, I'm gonna do this 2 times. So, you can place a double or not a double crochet, just kind of I would not go into a large hole like this because that's just gonna make it larger. I would kind of split that a little bit, or you can even kind of make your hook go through if you can get it through a tighter space, then. Like that, that might work well.

Um, so you're gonna yarn over. Uh, insert, yarn over, pull up, and pull through that first loop, and yarn over and pull through 2 to do that knot a double crochet. Another option, if you're feeling like this is going to leave too many gaps here, is we can do that decrease that we've been doing. So I'm going to take that, not a double crochet out. And you can do the uh not a double crochet decrease.

So we yarn over, insert through somewhere, grab a loop, insert through somewhere nearby. Grab, you know, and then we'll yarn over, pull through that loop, pull through that loop, then pull through the first loop on your hook, yarn over and pull through 2. Basically what we're doing is we're kind of making two sections kind of come together when we make that not a double crochet stitch. We're just sort of sewing them together. I'll show you that one more time right here, right here next to it.

So we're gonna yarn over, and we're going to put our hook under and grab a little bit of fabric here, and then we're gonna grab a little bit of fabric kind of over here. So basically you're just kind of going through it twice with your hook before you pull up your loop through both of those little loops that you went through, then through the loop on your hook like normal yarn over and pull through too, and that kind of just kind of brings it a little bit closer and makes that there be less gapping that happens there. If there is gapping, don't worry about it because you can sew it all together with this little yarn tail. That's why we left it a little bit long. Um, and really it's inevitable to have just, you know, you're gonna have a little bit of a gap right here, but that kind of minimizes it just a little bit there.

OK, let's see. My OK, the pattern calls for chain for 20, does it? In the, in the rib section. Oh, it does. That is a mistake.

OK, chain one is it? OK, this chain 2 in the ribbing, that should be a chain one. Thank you for catching that during this live event. OK, we will get that corrected, you know, it's not a huge deal, but it's gonna make it much neater and tighter if you do a chain one right there. So this is back in the ribbing section with the yarn over slip stitch.

It is the way I was teaching you within this video, but the pattern is incorrect and it has a chain too. Thank you for letting us know. I appreciate that. OK. All righty, um, Donna is asking what this yarn is the, um.

The the all the information for the yarn is found in your pattern download. It is um like a hand painted yarn. These are actually all the same yarn base, um, it's the same yarn base that I had used for the Kool-Aid dyeing, but this is something that the company hand painted. So, um, you can check that out. It's in the, in the download.

You can get all of the information like the what you know, fiber content, how much it weighs, the, the, um, color weighs, things like that. That's all in your download. OK. Let's see, when, when using a pattern, I circle the stitch count with a pencil for whatever size I'm making. Oh yes.

Oh, and then you can erase it and use the same copy for whatever size. That's a great idea. That's from Anita. Anita had a very good idea there. Um, I turned in later.

What is the beautiful yarn you're used? Oh yeah, from, oh, from Hamburg, Germany. Sandra is from Hamburg, Germany and wondering if you could get it here. Thank you. Um, yep, your, the information is all in your pattern download.

It is a yarn. I'll tell you it's a yarn from either nitpicks or crochet.com. So you can, um, they, and they ship all over the world, so you should be able to get it in Germany. Let's see, and Cindy is asking alternatively, could we turn it inside out and slip stitch through both sides to close the top of the mitten? So the lady who was using Finchley graph on knitted mit mittens last night.

Yeah, you could definitely do a slip stitch. The reason that I usually do a whip stitch instead is because I can pull that a little extra tight to kind of curve in the very top so you don't get those kind of coronary bits that sometimes happen with when you just sort of stitch it across. But I think that you could, I, I, you know, definitely try it. It's only a few stitches, flip it in right side out, yeah, flip it right side out and look at it. I'm, I'm sure it would be fine.

That would be a very durable and quick way to do that. That's a good question, Cindy. OK, so we've made it all the way around, and now we are going to just start working in the rounds to make our thumb. We're going to work on not a double crochet into each stitch around. So this was the very first one that we did.

We're going to yarn over, insert yarn over, pull up a loop, pull through that first loop on the hook, yarn over and pull through 2. So you can see that that has created this little hole here, but like I said before, that's what this is for. We're going to kind of just weave that in to close that hole up later. All right, so we're going to continue making those not a double crochets all the way around. Just like that.

Oops. And, you know, for different sizes, you'll go around different amounts or if you have to make any adjustments for a shorter thumbs or longer thumbs or whatever you like. Um, so basically, you're just gonna keep going around and around and create a little tube. Let me show you what that looks like here. So here we have, I've worked the appropriate amount for my size.

The adult small here. And then at this point, um we're going to do one more round and this round is decreasing pretty much all the way around. If you have an odd number of stitches, let me just double check here. Yeah, OK, so, um, if you have an odd number of stitches, we'll just do one additional single crochet at the end and you may be wondering why I just said single crochet because this round on the thumb I decided it looked better if I did an invisible decrease um in a single crochet style, so single crocheting two together all the way around. Because when I tried doing the not a double crochet decreases around, it just felt like there were too many windows between the stitches.

Um, you can try it and see how you like it, but that is the reason I switched it to. Basically a single crochet two together, but I'm doing an invisible decrease. So what that means is I'm going underneath the the front loop of the next stitch, then underneath both loops of the following stitch. This is just like the decrease we've been doing, except I didn't do a yarn over first. Wait, let me just back up because I feel like this is getting convoluted.

So to do the invisible decrease, you're gonna go, you're not yarning over this time, you're just gonna go under the front loop, then under both loops, grab that yarn, pull through both of those stitches. Then you're gonna yarn over and pull through 2, OK? And then we're gonna do that again. So underneath the front loop, underneath both loops, grab the yarn, pull through both stitches, yarn over, and pull through 2. Let's keep doing that.

We're going to go through um all the way around the whole mitten until you get back to the very beginning, and for some of you, you will have an odd number of stitches in your thumb, and that means you will have to just do one additional single crochet at the end. So here is my last. Single crochet decrease or invisible decrease here. Like that, and that's it for me. So, like I said, if you've decreased all the way around and you still have one stitch left over, you just do a single crochet there.

Then we're going to just slip stitch into that first stitch. I'm cutting my yarn, giving myself a little bit of a yarn tail. Pull through, pull through, and then grab the yarn and pull it through. OK, so now we just have this little tiny hole here. We've already decreased it a bit.

Let's see, here's my needle. So to close that up, just gonna thread that ending yarn tail on your needle. And you're gonna go underneath the front loop of each stitch. Just sliding up from the bottom. Like this.

And I'm not pulling it tight yet. I like to wait until I get all the way around. It seems like I have less of a chance of things bunching up funny and not working. And then I just go ahead and pull that nice and tight to close up my thumb. And then I would poke that to the inside.

And turn my glove right side out and um or sorry, wrong side out and then weave in my ends um and then I wanted to just show you real quick if you have a hole here, which likely you do, you would take your beginning yarn tail and then just sort of weave it back and forth. Now you can do this with the wrong side facing or you can do it with the right side facing. I normally leave it right side facing. Where's that hole? This one is not quite as big.

There it is, right there. There's my little hole. And I just kind of, I usually leave it right side facing and I just kind of take some little stitches back and forth, kind of sliding it back and forth between that little, you know, between that first stitch of that round and the last stitch. To just kind of get rid of that hole. And then tuck my iron tail in.

And go ahead and weave that in on the inside. What did I just do? OK, there we go. All right. All right.

And then I just steam blocked my mittens. You don't have to block them. You can just go ahead and wear them. They'll kind of block themselves, um, especially if you're in a lot of snow. Let me just hop over here and make sure I've answered all the questions we've got.

Let's see. Um, OK, uh, Brenda, alternatively, oh, I think I've got all the questions we've got. Cindy's question I believe was last. OK, great. I think we've got them all answered.

All right, well thank you guys so much for joining me. I really appreciate you guys being so active in the chat and you know making comments and and also correcting my pattern. Um, remember that chain 2 should be a chain one in as the turning chain in the, um, the ribbing for the wrist, and we'll get that corrected, but just, you know, if you've already downloaded your pattern, all you have to do is scratch out that little 2 and put a little 1 there and it should be just fine, um. OK, all right, thank you guys so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.

I hope you guys have fun making mittens and just as a quick reminder, I actually do have another live event in about 20 minutes and we're gonna be talking about budget. So if that sounds boring, budget, um, just know that it's gonna be a whole bunch of show and tell and then some fun ideas on how to save money. That sounds better, right? OK, I hope I see you guys there. Bye everybody.