In Which the Pirate Makes More Fleeps.

December 29, 2021

After many repairs, my old Fleeps were ready to retire. I had some more of the same yarn (Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed) in a dark blue and decided that now was the ideal time to knit it up. I’ve got lots of notes for custom-fitting this yarn into Fleeps for my narrow wrists and long fingers, so it was just a matter of following along and knitting exactly the same thing I did last time. (As a side note, I keep thinking I should knit a pair in a more sturdy yarn, but then I wouldn’t have these exact notes to work from… maybe I’ll do that next.) My Fleeps are a mashup of the Cigar and Gnomittens patterns, both of which are available for free.

I especially like how the stitches for the pinkie finger are set aside a bit lower than the rest of the fingers, matching the actual shape of my hand:

Pirate's hand models a Fleep in progress. The cuff and hand are knit, and stitches set aside for each of the fingers. It does not yet have a mitten top.

My old Fleeps look so sad with their Frankenstein repairs and threadbare sections (there are actual holes in the thumbs!), but I wasn’t going to let them go without rescuing and re-using the magnet snaps.

Pirate's hand, wearing a new blue Fleep and holding a small pair of orange-handled craft scissors, is ready to cut the magnet-snap off an old, worn, much-repaired green Fleep.

I like to put a small piece of felt as a backing to the magnet snaps to help keep them from pulling straight through the yarn. For the mitten top, I knit up to the end but didn’t graft it together before adding the magnet. I held the felt in place with my left hand while I sewed the magnet on with my right, then kitchenered the top of the mitten, flipped it inside out, trimmed the felt down, and sewed it around the edges.

Sewing the magnet-snap into the tip of the mitten before grafting the top shut.

On the cuff, I pinned a square of felt into place – it was far enough up in the cuff that I couldn’t hold it and sew at the same time.

A square of black felt is safety-pinned in place on the inside of the cuff while the magnet-snap is sewn to the outside.

After I’d sewed the magnet snap on, I trimmed the felt to a neat circle, perfectly centered…

The circle of felt on the inside of the cuff has been trimmed to size after sewing the magnet-snap to the outside of the cuff.

…and sewed it down around the edges.

A small, round piece of black felt is sewn down to the inside of the cuff.

And here is the finished pair! My project page for them is on Ravelry. As usual, I’ve only left two fingers and my thumb exposed to try to keep my hands as warm as possible. I’m looking forward to wearing my new Fleeps this winter, even if I’m still not traveling far… and I’m also, just a little bit, looking forward to working out the pattern modifications to make my next pair with different yarn.

A finished pair of blue Fleeps is displayed on a wooden table. One has the cuff and thumb cap folded back; the other is closed and the magnet snaps are visible.

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