I like to sleep in a cooler room but I do not enjoy waking to cold hands, so I decided to make myself some bed mittens. Fingerless mittens are basically a tube with a thumb gusset. For ease, I decided to make mine ribbed, to make them pretty, I opted for a mock cable ribbing that I call the Barnacle Stitch. It is a simple four round repeat that is easy to memorize

My prototype was made with a longer wrist section, but the pattern describes making a slightly shorter version. This will ensure you get a pair from a single ball. I also made a second pair using DROPS Fable (for daytime use) using the same needles and it made a slightly less dense fabric as it is a little lighter than the Baby Merino. If you try the Fabel and want a denser fabric, you could probably drop to a 2.75 mm needle with little problem as this ribbing is very stretchy.

This pattern requires knitters to be comfortable knitting in the round. Other skills required include - knit, purl, cast on, bind off, yarn over, pass slipped stitch over, increasing (either knit front and back loop or yarn over, followed by twisting and knitting the stitch the next round).

Instructions are given for a women’s (S-M) and (M-L). The instructions could be easily adapted if you wanted to make a plain ribbed (k2, p2) pair instead.

All you need is a ball of yarn, 3 mm double pointed needles and a few evenings. The stitch pattern is easy to memorize, the pattern repeats make it easy to count/track your progress, and because the left and right mittens are identical, no worries about making two lefties.

The navy pair pictured was knit with DROPS Baby Merino. The ivory pair was knit with DROPS Fabel.