Valley Yarns Sixth Button Mittens Knitting Pattern

Valley Yarns Sixth Button Mittens

Project Overview

The Sixth Button Mittens are a pair of colorful, Norwegian-inspired knitted mittens designed by Sara Delaney. These mittens combine multiple advanced stitch techniques and traditional Fair Isle colorwork to create detailed, visually striking winter accessories. The finished mittens measure 8 inches around the hand with a 10-inch length, fitting most adult hands in one universal size.

What Is Being Made

This pattern produces a complete pair of mittens worked seamlessly in the round from the cuff to the fingertips. The mittens feature a coordinated design with a decorative cuff section, a hand section with intricate colorwork, and shaped finger sections. The design incorporates both left and right mitten variations to ensure proper fit and pattern placement on each hand.

Techniques Used

The Sixth Button Mittens showcase several advanced knitting techniques that work together to create their distinctive appearance:

• Seamless Construction: The mittens are worked in the round using double-pointed needles, eliminating the need for seaming and creating a continuous, tubular fabric.
• Stranded Colorwork: Traditional Fair Isle technique is employed in the hand section, where two colors are carried simultaneously across rows to create intricate color patterns. The pattern includes a charted colorwork section for rounds 53 through 86.
• Latvian Braids: This decorative technique appears in the cuff and involves manipulating two strands of yarn in specific over-and-under patterns to create a braided appearance. The pattern includes detailed instructions for strand placement, alternating between bringing the working strand above or below the non-working color.
• Corrugated Ribbing: A textured ribbing technique that uses two colors in alternating knit and purl stitches, creating a visually distinct ribbed pattern with color variation.
• Picot Hem: A decorative edge created using yarn overs and decreases (k2tog, yo) that produces a delicate, scalloped hem finish at the cast-on edge. The cast-on edge is folded and knitted together with live stitches to create a finished edge.
• Bottom-Up Construction: The mittens are knitted from the cuff upward toward the fingertips, allowing for easy adjustments and fitting.
• Stripe Patterns: Color changes create striped sections throughout the mitten, particularly in the cuff area where solid-color knit and purl rounds alternate with the colorwork sections.

Stitches Used

The pattern employs fundamental knitting stitches combined in strategic ways to achieve its textured and colorful effects. Key stitches include:

• Knit Stitch: Used extensively throughout the mittens, particularly in stockinette sections and the main hand area.
• Purl Stitch: Incorporated in the corrugated ribbing sections and the picot hem to create textural contrast and definition.
• Yarn Over (yo): Used in the picot hem to create decorative eyelet holes that form the scalloped edge.
• Knit Two Together (k2tog): A decrease stitch used in the picot hem and for finger shaping to reduce stitch counts as needed.
• Stranded Colorwork Stitches: Standard knit stitches worked with two colors held simultaneously, with colors changed as directed by the colorwork chart.

Materials

The Sixth Button Mittens are knitted using Valley Yarns Huntington yarn, a durable blend of superwash merino wool and nylon that resists pilling and maintains its shape through regular wear. The pattern calls for one 50-gram skein of each of three colors: North Sea (main color), Arctic (contrast color 1), and Lemongrass (contrast color 2), providing approximately 218 yards per skein. The color combination features cool winter tones in North Sea and Arctic, accented with a warm green Lemongrass for visual interest and contrast.

Needles required are a set of five US size 1.5 (2.50mm) double-pointed needles (dpns), which are essential for working small circumferences in the round without gaps or laddering. The recommended gauge is 8 stitches and 11 rows per inch when working stockinette stitch in the round, ensuring the finished mittens will be appropriately sized and have the correct drape and warmth.

Pattern Structure and Construction Notes

The pattern begins with a cast-on