Poinsettia Fingerless Gloves

Fingerless gloves are my favorite accessory – and also my favorite piece to knit because they offer so many varieties of constructing them and – since they are relatively small – trying out ideas. 

The Poinsettia fingerless gloves are knitted flat and in garter stitch. They start with a provisional CO, are knitted flat and end with grafting. Finally the side seams have to be sewn together.

Since this is an intarsia project that also uses short rows, it can be quite fiddly. Therefore, it  is NOT a beginner pattern.

The knitting pattern for these fingerless gloves is available via

• Ravelry 
• Payhip
• Loveknitting (soon)

This pattern PDF is 13 pages long and contains 

• written row-by-row instructions for knitting a mitt in one size (slight adjustments can be made by using a different needle size)– including seven photos of the different stages  
• a pattern chart
• short photo tutorials for the following techniques that are needed to knit these mitts
• provisional CO with a crochet hook and how to undo it
• grafting in garter stitch
• short rows with wrap and turn and picking up the wraps and an explanation on doubly wrapped stitches
• intarsia knitting 
• weaving in yarn while carrying it (backwards and forwards)
• crochet CO

To knit these mitts you need the following materials

• Fingering weight yarn in two colours – I used a total about 37 grams:
• about 24 grams (or about 100 metres) of C1 (grey in the title picture)
• about 13 grams (or about 55 metres) of C2 (rainbow colours in the title picture)
• 2.5 mm or 3 mm knitting needles (or another needle that gives you the gauge) – straight or circulars
• scrap yarn and a crochet hook (about 3mm) for the provisional CO and the crochet CO
• 2 stitch markers
• a tapestry needles for grafting and to weave in ends and for grafting

The instructions are for one size only. However, I knitted two pairs – one with 2.5 mm needles (top) and one with 3 mm needles (bottom) – the photo on the right shows each pair with one mitt already sewn up and one before that step:

• With 2.5 mm needles 28 ridges (56 garter stitch rows) gave me 10 cm in height and 25 sts gave 10 cm in width (with an unblocked swatch, since I didn't block the mitts). The finished piece knitted with 2.5 mm needles is about 17 cm high (at it's highest point) and about 15.5 cm in diameter (just below the thumb). 
• With 3 mm needles 26 ridges (53 garter stitch rows) gave me 10 cm in height and 23 sts gave 10 cm in width (also with  unblocked swatch). The piece measures about 18 cm in height and about 16 cm in diameter (just below the thumb).

In any case, the pieces are all in garter stitch, so they are quite stretchy.