I’m feeling pretty proud that I am on track to meet my goal of designing and knitting a pair of mittens every month this year. Today, I present to you the March Newgrange Mittens.
I wanted to do something with an Irish twist to it for March because of St. Patrick’s Day. Matt and I spend two weeks driving around Ireland last spring. One of our favorite parts of the trip was visiting the the prehistoric monuments, tombs and stone circles scattered all over the island. Something about these places in the middle of quiet farmer’s fields and on top of windy, rainy bluffs was so powerful.
One of the most striking ones to visit is Newgrange at Brú na Bóinne, a monument dating from 3200 BC (That is 500 years older than the pyramids folks!). No one is exactly sure what Newgrange was used for, but a roofbox on the monument is aligned so that at sunrise on the Winter Solstice the passage in and main chamber are lit up for 17 minutes.
Inside and out, Newgrange is decorated with intricate rock carvings, mainly spirals (often tri-spirals), diamonds in a scale-like pattern and ovals with dots in them. I took those designs and turned them into a mitten pattern that is beautiful, intricate, and most of all reminds me of a very powerful part of Ireland.
March Newgrange Mittens
Download pdfs of the Newgrange Mittens Pattern (with the chart) or just the Newgrange Mittens Chart (10/23/15: the chart has been changed in both pdfs to improve the contrast between the grey and white.)
Supplies:
- Sock or fingering weight yarn in two colors, about 175 – 200 yards of each
- Four size 0 double-pointed needles or size needed to get gauge
- Stitch markers
- Scrap yarn or stitch holder
- Tapestry needle
Gauge: 10 stitches and 12 rows per inch
Size: Women’s Medium (7.5 inches wide)
Skills needed:
- knit and purl in the round on double pointed needles
- work basic increases and decreases, kfb, k2tog, ssk
- work make one left and right increases
- do two color stranded colorwork
- read a colorwork chart
- seam using kitchener stitch
- picking up stitches
Follow the written pattern for the shaping of the mittens and the chart for the colorwork.
© 2005 – 2014 Kathy Lewinski & Susan Cornish
It’s the just the beginning of March, Kat! I think it’s awesome that you are already done with these mittens and I love the pattern. What’s especially nice is the memories associated with the mittens.
Well, I start the next month’s mittens as soon as I finish the last & these were such fun to knit. I’m just waiting for my yarn to start April’s….
Thank you thank you thank you…went to Newgrange in November while visiting my daughter who was studying at Trinity. Loved this amazing spot and wanted to make my girls something special. Perfect gift. As it is snowing today, I think I will get started.
Isn’t Newgrange an amazing place! Hope you have fun knitting these up.
I am still jealous of your trip to Ireland. It is one trip that I am still hoping to complete someday (probably after I win the Lottery first). I love your mitten projects as well. Are you gifting the 12 pairs at the end of the year?
It was really a wonderful trip & we were lucky to get to do it.
The January & February mittens will be part of an auction for Elle’s family. The March mittens are going to my friend Jenn. Not sure what will happen to the rest as I go on…
I will repeat one of your comments to me–you have some very lucky friends.
Lol, I hope they think so.
I love these. The tri-spirals also remind me of bicycles. Congratulations on another beautiful pattern!
Is it ok to print one copy for personal use? Is it also ok to create 1 pair for personal use? Sounds silly, but I just want to be sure. Thanks.
It is totally fine to print and knit it for personal use. I just don’t want people printing multiple copies to hand out, sell, etc…
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Hi Kat,
I fell in love with that pattern and even though I’m a novice I’ve decided do make those mittens for myself in light blue and offwhite alpaca yarn.
I do however need additional explanations for your abbreviations:
M1l and M1r – I have no idea what do you mean there, is M1l ordinary knit and M1r similar but you put the needle in from behind the loop knitwise?
Ssk – I don’t understand the difference between that and k2tog (which I know how to do). If I slip the two stitches, is it like when knitting a braid, you slip the stitches, knit a while and then go back and knit the slipped stitches?
The rest of the pattern is beautifully and clearly written, so if I can get an explanation on the 3 abbreviations above, knitting these mittens should be a breeze. 😀
Thank you so much in advance
/Bel
I googled (should’ve done that first but hey…) and M1l/r is completely new to me but I really do see its usefulness. Ssk wasn’t new, its just knitting two together ‘through the back loops’ and no, you don’t need to slip the stitches at all, you just push the right needle through the back of the next two loop on the left needle and then knit.
Thank you for the pattern, I’m gonna get right to it. Should be done with it sometime next winter. 😀
I’m glad you found tutorials. There are some many great ones out there, I find Knittinghelp.com to be a great resource. It’s good to have these different increases and decreases in your arsenal because they slant in different directions giving your knitting a more professional look.
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I am in the rows that begin to m1l and m1r. Do those added stitches count as stitches in the colour chart? I am getting very confused about it.
Jenn, those stitches are part of the thumb. If you look at the thumb chart you will see that row is increased by two stitches. I hope the helps.
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