This mitten pattern is a mystery knitalong (shortened to MKAL) that runs from the 1st to the 21st of December 2020. That means the pattern will be filled out gradually, each clue being released on the following dates: the 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, 17th and 21st of December. In other words, six clues in total, that will come out just in time for you to have a finished pair of stranded colourwork mittens for the festive holidays. I hope you will enjoy this pattern, and if you need any help, please do not hesitate to contact me in my Ravelry group ‘Skeindeer Knits’. It’s the best place for swift support.

Yarn
Rauma Finull (100% Norwegian wool, 175 m / 191 yds, 50 g). 80 m mc, 50 m cc1, 40 m cc2.

You will get the best results if you use a fingerint go sport weight, non-superwash, woollen spun sheep’s wool yarn. Alternatives: Hillesvåg Ask or Vilje, Sandnes Tove, Jamieson’s Spindrift, Holst Supersoft etc.

Needles
Gauge-size needles and 0.5 mm below gauge-size needles for working small circumferences in the round.

The sample was made using 3 mm (US 2 ½) and 2.5 mm (US 1 ½) mm needles.

Gauge
(34, 32, 30, 28) sts = 10 cm / 4” in stranded colourwork.

Sizes
(1, 2, 3, 4)
The sample is knit in size 3 and worn with 2.5 cm / 1” ease around the knuckles.

Mitten circumference (19, 20, 21, 23) cm / (7.5, 7.75, 8.5, 9)”.

Notions
3 stitch markers
Waste yarn for thumb hole
Darning needle
Optional: cable needle

Colour choices
The pattern uses 3 colours in total, though you could certainly get away with only using 2.

The most important thing to consider is that the colours are in high contrast to one another, especially mc, in relation to cc1 and cc2. It is less important that cc1 and cc2 are in high contrast, though they will be used together as well, in the first clue.

I would also recommend choosing colours that get you in a festive spirit, whatever that means to you. Stop reading this paragraph now if you do not want to know which colours I used. The colours I used are red and two shades of grey.

A note on gauge grading
You are probably familiar with size grading by different stitch counts. However, colourwork mittens require a fixed stitch count to retain the same motif across different sizes. Because of this, gauge grading has been used historically.

This is used by subtly changing gauge, by means of different needle sizes, to achieve different gagues. It is the same equation that we use to calculate how many stitches we need to get different sizes, but turned on its head.

Instead of assuming a fixed gauge and different stitch counts, we have a fixed stitch count and different gauges for different sizes.