Can’t decide between scales and stripes? Don’t know which colour to use as your main? Just generally in the mood for something a little funky and crazy? Then these are the mittens for you. For those times when you want to start knitting but don’t want to make a whole lot of design choices, Zebra Fish is half scales, half stripes, and all fun no matter which way you wear them.

The stripes are given some texture by taking advantage of the colour dominance effect that occurs in stranded knitting. This Paper Tiger blog entry gives an excellent explanation.

Level: Advanced beginner

Skills required: Long-tail cast on, basic increases and decreases, 2-colour stranded knitting, Kitchener stitch

Instruction type: Written instructions only.

Construction: Mitten is worked from cuff to fingertips with a gusset thumb. The pattern is written generically so as to accommodate all small circumference techniques: dpns/ magic loop/ 2 circulars, both one at a time and two at a time.

Yarn: Zebra Fish requires two colours of worsted weight yarn, about 85 yds (78 m) of each colour.

Size: 8” circumference at the palms

Many thanks to my testers for their feedback.