Dear Sis,
I was rooting around the internet a few weeks ago looking for inspiration for some wrist-warmers. You know I have some chronic wrist problems from a couple car accidents in my teens, and I recently had bilateral carpel tunnel surgery. Not a picnic… For anyone of my fellow hookers with carpel tunnel syndrome, I do not recommend doing both wrists at the same time! Of course, neither did my doctor… but I had to get them done and get myself healed for when my husband visited… so I won that discussion! If you can call being completely unable to feed oneself for a week or so winning… haha.
Anyway, I had read that it is important to keep one’s wrists warm while crocheting or kitting in order to lesson damage and make it more comfortable. Not wanting to go through more pain, I opted to make these wrist-warmers a priority!
I knew I wanted something simple. No fancy or frilly stuff. I wanted them to fit easily and comfortably under my hoodies. I also wanted something that covered my wrist, but not much else. These mitts fit the bill, but the pattern was in a language I do not read.
It was translated into English, but it referred extensively to the “back fillet” and I could not for the life of me figure out if it meant the back loop or the back bump… so after a bit of trial and error, I kept looking. (I apologize for not having the website information… I would love if anyone knows where these mitts can be found! For some reason I did not save the information, only took a photo of my screen… so strange. And if I find it, I”ll put the link up here.)
I was not finding much of what I wanted online, so I started my own pattern… I finished the left mitt and decided it was not going the way I wanted… It was yellow cotton and much too fitted. The color was beautiful (and I regret not having taken photos… it was Peaches & Cream), but the fit required me to use a button close… not very hoodie friendly, now is it? Nope!!
So I went back to the internet with my new found information. Looking for a pattern again, this time with more purpose, and an even better sense of what I wanted. I finally stumbled upon exactly what I wanted! There it was in beautiful simplicity.
Having used several free patterns from the internet, I was, of course, weary. I waited to frog my yellow wrist warmer until I was sure this pattern worked. I found a skein of yarn my mother talked me into buying because of the colors. I had no idea what I was going to do with this strongly variegated cotton. Here was the pattern for it, I suppose. I zipped through the left mitt. Beautiful! Perfect! I was impressed. Still not tearing out my original yet…
The right mitt proved equally fast… I eagerly put them on! I put my hands together… and what is this? Is the right mitt longer than the left? Yes 😦 Yes, it is.
I checked the original pattern… Yes, I followed it correctly. I studied the photo of the completed project by the author. Oh my goodness, her right mitt is longer than her left as well! I hadn’t noticed it before because I just thought one was bunched up a bit. Okay, how can I fix this??? Well, I will spare you the ugly details of me tearing my mitt out 4 times. But I will attach the pattern that I finally used to fix the length issue as well as the issue where the thumb hole was too large and the main hand hole was too small which occurred when joining rows straight from the open chain.
In the end, all the puttering and redoing and fixing was worth it:
Yay! Beautiful mitts!!! I plan to make a wooly set of these as well when I get done with some stash busting so I can purchase some wool! And thank you to haikugirloz for the original pattern.
Of course, I wrote all my modifications down into my own pattern (based heavily on the original), and of course I’m sharing! I’ll upload it very soon ❤
Enjoy,
K
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Edit to add:
The pattern for the wrist-warmers is now up! 😀