These are my first knitted mittens and my first time using Judy’s magic cast on/constructing something in the “toe-up” style. (Video tutorial)

I used the magic loop on a 40” circular needle with the palm/back stitches on one needle and the front stitches on the other. I knitted the last stitch on the top of the hand through the back loop in order to keep the stitches snug and neat.

I really enjoyed knitting these mittens. I think they are so adorable. I absolutely love the bobbles.

However, I am unhappy with the fit. The mittens are about 1/2” too long for me (from the thumb to the top) and I have pretty big hands. Simone reported that they are way too big for her. I couldn’t really tell how the mittens fit until I finished the thumb and I was not willing to rip back all of that work. And it’s not like I was going to make the second mitten 1/2” shorter than the first.

Also, the mittens fit a little weird around the thumb area. It may be because there is no thumb gusset shaping. Or it may be because I have really big thumb knuckles. (That sounds weird, but I do have giant man thumbs. For real.)

I did 6 rows of rib at the cuff because I would have run out of yarn if I had worked 10 rows of rib as directed in the pattern. Each one of my mittens weighs 48 grams and each skein of yarn weighs 50 grams. And I am not the first person on Ravelry to run out of yarn while making these mittens. So there is obviously a yardage discrepancy.

The pattern says the mittens are supposed to be 9” tall. This would be accurate if there were 70 rows total. However, you work a total of 82 rows, which means the finished length is actually 10.5”. I worked 78 rows for a finished length of 10” but the mittens ended up 9.5” long after working the thumb. My point is, I don’t think the finished length stated in the pattern is correct.

I had a hard time picking up the first row of stitches for the thumb. But I picked up the other 12 stitches with no problem. Maybe I ripped out the scrap yarn backwards or something. I ended up with some holes around the thumb stitches that I sewed closed with the yarn tails.

I didn’t wet block the mittens because the yarn is 100% alpaca and I didn’t want them to grow. I did spray them with water from a spray bottle to try to even out the reverse stockinette stitches, but it didn’t seem to do much. If anything, I flattened out the bobbles a little bit when I flipped the mittens over to dry.

Total Cost: $10.98