Florida Flip Top Mittens

Does this ever happen to you? You knit a pair of mittens for charity, perhaps using an actual child from the house to try them on to make sure they're the right size...and then a month later they ask you to make the thing "just like the purple ones you made"?

So you start....and then you find out that by "just like the ones you made" they mean...a different color, a washable yarn, and not mittens but gloves?

Here are the flip-top mittens I made for "the monkey". I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease; not sure what needle size (7ish?)



These directions assume you have some experience with mittens, or perhaps have another mitten pattern around to fill in the blanks:

Cast On 36 stitches on 3 DPN for knitting in the round.

Knit 20 rounds of K3P3 rib.

Knit 10 rounds plain

Thumb gusset:

Alternate increase rounds with plain rounds.

1. K5, Kfb, kfb, Knit rest of round

2. Knit plain round

3. K5 Kfb k2 Kfb knit rest of round

4. knit plain round

5. K5 kfb k4 kfb knit rest of round

6. knit plain round

7. k5 kfb k6 kfb knit rest of round

8. knit plain round

9. k5 put 10 stitches on holder or 5th dpn, cast on 2, knit rest of the round

Knit 9 rounds plain (or until you get to the base of the fingers)

Right Hand: K6, P3K3 rib for 18 stitches, K12 for 5 rounds

Left Hand: K24 P3K3 rib for 18 stitches (this kind of skews the beginning of the round a little. You could also do P3 K21 P3K3 for 12 sts.) for 5 rounds.

bind off the 18 rib stitches, continue the round.

Use a piece of scrap yarn and provisionally cast on 18 stitches. Join in to the round at the point where you cast off the 18 stitches.

Knit about 10 more rounds (to the tops of the pinky finger)

Decrease rounds: alternate with plain rounds until there are about 4 stitches between decreases. [K7 K2tog] * 4; knit plain; [k6 K2tog] * 4; knit plain.... when 4 stitches remain, cut yarn and run through the remaining stitches twice, then secure with a french knot and weave in end.

Flap: Pick up the knit stitches from the provisional cast on and knit in K3P3 rib for 5 rows. Use tails to tack the edges down to the mitten, overlapping the rib that was there. Remove the waste yarn from the provisional cast on.

Thumb: Take the 10 stitches and pick up some additional stitches to make the thumb.