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.