Classic Elite Yarns Putney Mittens Knitting Pattern

Classic Elite Yarns Putney Knit Mittens

What Is Being Made

Putney is a pair of knitted mittens featuring bright colorwork with floral embroidery and striped borders. The mittens are identical and reversible, designed to be worn on either hand. These are intermediate-level mittens that combine structured shaping with decorative patterning for a finished, polished look.

Construction Techniques

The Putney mittens are constructed using several key knitting techniques that create a seamless, professional finish:

• Worked in the round: The mittens are knitted circularly from the cuff upward, eliminating the need for seaming and creating a smooth, continuous fabric.
• Bottom-up construction: Knitting begins at the cuff and progresses toward the fingertips, allowing for easy fitting adjustments and intuitive sizing.
• Seamless design: The circular knitting method ensures no seams on the finished mittens, providing comfort and a refined appearance.
• Striped colorwork: Multiple yarn colors are introduced in horizontal stripes throughout the cuff and hand sections, creating visual interest and depth.
• Thumb gusset shaping: The mittens feature an integrated thumb gusset with strategic increases worked in the round, allowing the thumb to fit naturally without seaming.
• Floral chart patterning: A charted flower motif is worked twice per round—once on the back of the hand and once on the palm side—creating symmetrical, balanced colorwork.

Stitches and Stitch Techniques

The Putney pattern employs a variety of fundamental and intermediate stitches to achieve its structure and embellished appearance:

• Knit and purl stitches: The foundation of the design, used to create smooth stockinette sections and textured reverse stockinette areas.
• S2kp (slip 2 stitches together, knit 1, pass slipped stitches over): A centered double decrease used in the cuff shaping to create symmetrical tapering from 78 stitches down to 42 stitches, forming the decorative pointed edge characteristic of the cuff.
• M1 (make 1 increase): Used for the thumb gusset increases; the pattern specifies lifting the strand between needles in a color that matches the new stitch being created, ensuring seamless color integration.
• Charted colorwork: The Flower chart guides stitch placement and color changes, worked over 19 or 21 stitches depending on size, creating the floral motif across the hand.
• Thumb chart: A separate charted pattern for the thumb gusset increases, worked between marked stitches to shape the thumb opening.

Materials and Tools

The Putney mittens require standard knitting supplies appropriate for colorwork and small circumference knitting:

• Yarn: Classic Elite Yarns in multiple colors (designated as A, B, C, and D in the pattern), allowing for the striped and floral colorwork effects.
• Needles: Both circular needles and double-pointed needles (dpn) are used. The pattern begins with a circular needle for the cuff and transitions to smaller double-pointed needles as the stitch count decreases and the circumference becomes too small for the circular needle.
• Notions: Stitch markers are essential for tracking the beginning of rounds and marking the thumb gusset placement.

Pattern Details and Sizing

The Putney mittens are available in two sizes: Adult Medium and Adult Large. The cuff begins with 78 cast-on stitches and is shaped through a series of centered decreases using the s2kp technique, creating a distinctive pointed or scalloped edge. The cuff measures approximately 1¾ inches at its deepest point and 1¼ inches from the straight section of the cast-on edge between the points. The lower hand section introduces the charted Flower pattern, which is repeated twice per round for balanced, symmetrical colorwork. The thumb gusset is integrated seamlessly with increases worked in matching yarn colors, and the pattern includes detailed instructions for managing stitch counts as the work progresses. Originally published in Color By Kristin Book Four, this design is credited to designer Kristin Nicholas and is classified as an intermediate-skill-level project.