Grey Tweed Cruiser Mittens

Now that winter is here, there has been lots of snow to be shoveled from our walkway - I decided the D was in desperate need of some hand protection this year, given he has been mittenless and gloveless for about 2 years in a row now. Of two yarn choices, and he chose the Plymouth Tweed in charcoal grey, which made a nice slubby texture in the mittens.


The pattern is called Cruiser by Cailyn Meyer (free download on Ravelry) and I cast on for the size large. I made a few modifications as I went along:

• I started the afterthought thumb hole after about two pattern repeats (4" from the cuff) because I didn't like how the cuff looked when you started the hole earlier, and I left 7 stitches on scrap instead of 6.
  
• I still picked up 4 stitches on each side. With decreasing, I decreased 3 stitches every row.
  
• For the hand I had a total of 8 pattern repeats before decreasing the top, and I made my mitten a little pointier and left a total of 10 stitches at the end for grafting.

This is a really quick knit because of the aran-weight yarn. Even though I used US6 needles (to get a denser fabric), I think I started around Christmas and finished in less than a week, which is probably my record for fastest knit in 2009!