Taking inspiration from our Quick Christmas Knits blog post I just couldn’t resit knitting the North Country Mitts by Andrea Mowry. A super quick but still interesting to knit pair of aran weight fingerless gloves. Knitting in just one 50g ball. Also it was a good excuse to knit a little shop sample in the lovely Du Store Alpakka – Alpaca Tweed.

Du Store Alpakka – Alpaca Tweed is a sumptuously soft alpaca and merino blend. Lightly spun, its like a soft cloud but also sturdy. Great worn next to the skin due to it’s softness and ideal for anything from accessories to garments. What sets this yarn apart is not only it’s gorgeous palette of colours, but the lovely tweedy quality created by the donegal flecks. This yarn would make the most gorgeous tweedy jumpers, cosy warm scarfs or quick fingerless gloves. The ideal yarn for knitting speedy Christmas gifts.

So here we have them the North Country Mitts by Andrea Mowry. I really enjoyed this project. They took me no time at all, a couple of evenings and a few train rides to and from work – the perfect traveling project. The yarn knits up beautifully and the slight halo it gives tells me they will be warm. It also gives a nice soft definition to the garter stitch chevron detail. All together the pair only took 35g of yarn.

The pattern is simply written and clear to follow. It’s written for one size but the they would fit a wide range of hand sizes. I didn’t knit a tension swatch or test gauge for this project (I tend not too for small accessories as the tension swatch is sometimes bigger than the project themselves!). I just keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Neither did I block them but prefer to let them take the shape of the hands that end up wearing them.

What I enjoyed is they are written for one needle size. No fussy changing for the ribbing. I knit them using the magic loop method, for want of the right size needle, but you would have no problem knitting with DPN’s as well if you prefer. The only fiddly bit for me was knitting the tiny thumb ribbing, but once I got into the swing of it it went smoothly. The nice thing about this style of fingerless gloves is there are no fiddly fingers of half fingers that can be off putting to a novice knitter.

I think this pattern would suit a knitter who is confident working in the round over small circumferences and who can increase. There is not much more to them.

This pair will be joining all the other Du Store Alpakka – Alpaca Tweed on the shelves of Knit With Attitude so if you fancy checking them out in person and trying them on for size just swing by the shop and check them out.