In Which the Pirate Makes Warmer Fleeps (Take Two).

February 1, 2023

Right, so, I made the inner gloves in a grayish green yarn for a pair of Fleeps (flip-top glove/mittens, for those of you who are new here) that will be warmer than my usual single-layer ones… and then I decided that the grayish green looked awful against the coal and teal I’d picked for the outer mittens. So I started over, and knit a new pair of inner gloves in the dark gray. They took almost exactly one skein (50g/144 yards) of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light, a 50/50 wool/alpaca blend.

Two gloves with a set of DPNs and a tiny ball of leftover yarn between them. The gloves are handknit in a dark charcoal gray yarn. They have partial fingers for the thumb, index, and middle fingers. The ringfinger and pinkie are fully covered.

Once I had the inner gloves finished, I could put them on and measure over them to figure out how many stitches I’d need for the outer mittens, which are knit in Berroco Ultra Alpaca (slightly thicker yarn at 100g/219 yards, same 50/50 blend). In Excel, because it’s perfectly cromulent graph paper, I charted out a stitch pattern for the palm and back of the hand and got started with a zig-zag for the back and checkerboard for the palm.

The back of a mitten in progress, modeled on a hand. The thumb stitches are held on waste yarn and the mitten part still has needles in it. The cuff is dark charcoal gray and the stitch pattern is a teal and coal zigzag.

When I got to the place where I think the mitten should flip open, I knit across with waste yarn and then knit again with the regular yarn. Removing the waste yarn will give me live stitches on both sides of the opening. I’ll bind off along the hand and knit a few rows of overlap down from the top part of the mitt. The thumb will also have a flip-top, of course, and that will be today’s challenge to figure out.

The cuff looks huge over my wrist because it’s a double layer of ribbing in two different yarns. I was originally planning to sew the edges together to have permanently lined fleeps, but I think they may fit better/sit better on my hands if I keep them separate. The plus side of doing that is that I’ll be able to keep the fingerless gloves on in places like the supermarket, where my hands are often cold but full mittens would be too much. The negative side is that I’ll have to keep track of four pieces, instead of two.

This attempt at Warmer Fleeps is going a lot better than the last time I tried it! Some day I’ll go back to that design, with the knowledge I’ve gained from knitting this simpler colourwork pattern, and see if I can’t make a pair of mittens that actually fit.

The palm side of a mitten in progress, modeled on a hand. The thumb stitches are held on waste yarn and the mitten part still has needles in it. The cuff is dark charcoal gray and the stitch pattern is alternating stitches of teal and coal.

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