I was able to get 5 entrelac panels out of one skein of the Premier Yarns Serenity Garden yarn. Two of the panels were used for this pair of mitts. Two others were used in another project (these mitts). I have no idea what I’m going to do with the leftover panel unless I manage to find another skein of this colorway. The length of the color repeat was such that I did not end up with any 2 panels that came any where close to matching, so the resulting mitts are very fraternal.

I made a few modifications to the construction of these mitts. Rather than bind off the palm portion, seaming (leaving the hole for the thumb) and then picking up stitches for the thumb, I bound off 6 stitches at the cuff end and 10 stitches at the top end and left the center 14 stitches live. I placed the live stitches on waste yarn and seamed the top and bottom bound off stitches to the entrelac panel. Then when working the thumb I placed those 14 stitches on my circular needle and picked up 16 more stitches along the entrelac edge (14 along the side and 1 additional stitch at each end), for the total of 30 thumb stitches. This eliminates the seam on the palm side of the thumb. I felt the thumb was rather large, especially compared to the snug fit of the other fingers, so I decreased an additional 2 stitches twice several rows after the round of thumb decreases included in the pattern. I added one more stitch to the ribbing section beginning and ending the ribbing with 2 knit stitches to make the seaming easier. (I used a sort of modified Mattress Stitch seaming the side edge of the ribbing to the edge of the entrelac.)

In previous versions of this mitt I picked up 2 additional stitches for the pinkie finger to give a little more comfortable fit, but even with those 2 extra stitches I often found that the pinkie finger felt very tight at the base while the other fingers did not. (I swear I do not have exceptionally fat pinkie fingers.) I think I have determined what was causing this to occur. The pinkie finger is started immediately after picking up the stitches at the top of the hand while the remaining fingers are started after an additional 2 rounds have been knit around the top of the hand. Those picked up stitches at the base of the pinkie don’t have the freedom of movement afforded to the other fingers by those extra rows of knitting. For these mitts I knit one round after the picked up stitches before beginning the pinkie. The combination of the 2 extra picked up stitches and that extra round of knitting prior to beginning the pinkie seems to have made a world of difference.

An interesting note: I have absolutely hated this Sublime yarn since the very first time I worked with it, and am still trying to get rid of the one and only skein I ever bought. I used it rather reluctantly for these mitts because the turquoise color was a very good match with the turquoise present in the Hydrangea colorway of Serenity Garden. My complaint from past use was that it stretched and lost its shape, so I ended up with some very floppy, baggy gloves. Paired with the Serenity Garden entrelac panels, which do not stretch at all, what I ended up with this time was the most amazingly comfortable mitts ever! I’m in love!

These mitts were made on a 47” US size 3 circular needle and size 3 double points. I used a US size 4 to bind off, and used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off for the ribbing.