Skerries Mitts

The Skerries Mitts pattern comes from Marie Wallin’s Shetland Book. They looked like a useful and quick knit that wouldn’t be complicated, and I had most of the colours she used along with close enough substitutes for any I didn’t.

They are quick, they’re not complicated, they are useful, and I’m on my third pair now (they seem to get promised away before I finish them, the fourth set might stay with me). The only bad thing I have to say about them is that they use hardly any yarn and I really need to clear out more of my stash. 

I liked the first pair, but they were a bit to long for me, and although the colours looked good, they weren’t my colours. For the second pair I took out a few lines of plain colour whilst keeping the patterns, and moved the thumb opening up a bit whilst making it smaller. For the third pair, which I’m currently working on, I’ve changed the motifs around. For the next pair I’m thinking ribbing instead of moss stitch, possibly making them much shorter, and so it goes on.

There’s nothing especially clever about the pattern - it’s a tube with a thumb hole in it, which is satisfyingly adaptable and good for keeping wrists warm. What it’s brilliant for is using as a kind of swatch. I’m lazy about swatching and getting colours to work in Fair isle style knitting is an endless challenge.

Each pair of these mitts I’ve made has shown me things which would work better, which is amazingly helpful. In both finished pairs I made mistakes that I’ve found quite interesting - in the first pair I missed a single row colour change, in the second pair I forgot I’d changed colours round and used green when I had meant a purple/pink colour. The difference those few rows make to the overall look of the mitt really surprised me. I’m wondering how many pairs I’ll need to make before I’m totally satisfied with the results.