Showing Off & Knitting a Better Thumb: Possessed Printer Fingerless Mitts

Possessed Printer Mitts UNBLOCKED

I just had to share my latest knitting project, the wonderful Possessed Printer Mitts by Emma Galati.  This pattern is great for variegated dk yarn, I used some beautiful merino hand-dyed yarn from Lola-Doodles on etsy.  I bought this yarn a couple of years ago.  I wish I had taken a photo of it still wrapped in its skein.  The color is Mist.  Such a beautiful array on purples, blues, pinks, and greens.  You can see all the amazing colors in the palm of these mitts.

Anyway, love the yarn, love the pattern, but I wanted to add knitted thumbs as other Ravelers had done.  So I followed some of the notes that others had posted and filled in on my own what was missing.  Below are my specific notes on my thumb pattern, based heavily on what AKnitOnTheSide had done.

I didn't want super long mitts, but you can adjust the length by following the pattern for longer before starting your thumb gusset.  I started with my left mitt first:

Left Mitt

I followed the pattern as written for the wrist for 13 caught stitches,  After the 13th caught stitch, I placed a second marker 2 stitches before my end of round marker (to mark my thumb gusset) as AKnitOnTheSide had done.  AT THE SAME TIME as marking my gusset, I knit into the front and back of the two marked stitches, increasing my thumb gusset to 4 stitches.   Then a knit 2 rounds straight, following the pattern.

Note:  While knitting my thumb, I continued to follow the caught stitch pattern on the front of the mitt and knit the palm as directed.

On the third round, when I got to the thumb gusset, I once again knitted into the front and back of the first stitch, knit across the other stitches, and knit into the front and back of the last stitch, increasing my gusset to 6 sts.  I continued this pattern of increasing the gusset every third round until I had 14 stitches in my gusset.  I then knit two more rounds without increasing, but maintaining the pattern.

After these two extra rounds, when I got to my gusset, I moved my thumb stitches on to some waste yarn and cast on 6 stitches using the backwards loop method to create a wall where the thumb was.  Then I knit one round in pattern, knitting all the stitches across the wall .  The next round, I knit in pattern until reaching the wall area, I decreased the first two stitches with a ssk, knit the next two stitches, then decreased the last two stitches with a k2tog, leaving me with 4 stitches in my wall.

Next round, I knit in pattern, and just knit across my wall.  On the fourth round, I continued in pattern until my wall, then ssk, k2tog.  This left me with 2 stitches in my wall and brought me back to the original 40 stitch count.

Now I just finished the pattern as written.  I ended with 30 caught stitches total, then switched to only 5 rounds of the twisted rib for my border.  Then I bound off in pattern.

Finishing up the thumb - I moved my thumb stitches from the waste yarn onto my dpns.  I knit across my 14 stitches, then picked up 1 stitch in the gap between my thumb and the wall, 4 stitches along the base of my wall, and 1 more stitch in the gap between the wall and my thumb (picked up 6 stitches total).  I knit one round, but when I got to my 6 picked up stitches, I decreased the first 2 sts with a k2tog, and the last two stitches, leaving me with 18 stitches around the thumb.  I knit one more round, then switched to 4 rounds of the twisted stitch ribbing before binding off in pattern.

Possessed Printer Mitts UNBLOCKED

Right Mitt

The right mitt follows the same instructions, but use the first two stitches of the 17 knit stitches that make up the palm as the beginning of your thumb gusset.

My mitts are a little bit looser than I'd like, but I hope a good blocking with make them a little tighter.  I hope these notes help anyone who wants to add a thumb to their mitts :)