Very Blended Scotch

Every December me and my knitting buddies get together for our annual Christmas party. This year instead of knitting each other Christmas gifts, we decided to start a mini KAL and knit the same project. We'd done this before in 2014 when Tukuwool was first launched and knitted the Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang. This year it was another colorwork fingerless mitt pattern: Blended Scotch Mitts by Thea Colman.

The pattern comes with a really cute idea: share your leftovers or minis with five friends in a round robin style. But that was pretty much where the cute ended. Some serious modifications were needed lest this project turn into Whisky Sour.

1. Changing yarn weight

The pattern is written for DK-weight yarn and comes in two sizes. We brought scraps in two yarn weights but ended up all choosing just Tukuwool Fingering. I opted to go with the larger size stitch counts but could've been fine with the smaller size, with stitches increased for the colorwork sections.

2. Modifying colorwork charts

There are two colorwork charts in the pattern, with the main chart working perfectly for both sizes given. The smaller one, curiously, is not evenly divisible over the larger size stitch count, and some weird maneuvering instructions were given in the pattern. To make this simpler, I modified the chart to be divisible by 8... which meant adding another three-color colorwork row.

That's right, this pattern has multiple rows where you're working with three yarns on one row. Not for the faint of heart or inexperienced in colorwork. Let me just say, a colorwork yarn guide made things so much easier.

I don't know if it was a mistake or intentional that the main colorwork chart was NOT symmetrical. It might not bother some people but I just couldn't handle this asymmetry. Again, the chart had to be modified, not for the stitch count but for perfect symmetry.

3. Adding a thumb gusset

When we started knitting the pattern, someone quickly pointed out that, oh by the way, there's no thumb gusset in this pattern. In hindsight, the fact that there are no photos of the palm side anywhere on the pattern should've been a big, glaring warning sign. There are still no photos on Ravelry of anyone actually wearing the no-gusset mitts.

The addition of the thumb gusset meant that I had to move the charts around: place the smaller one on the bottom before the gusset and the larger one around the palm. This also meant that the main colorwork chart was placed not at the widest part of the hand (like in the original), making for mitts that can be worn comfortably without the colorwork restricting your thumb mobility.

4. No separate fingers

My last modification was to not knit the separate fingers. After this many changes to the original pattern, what's another one? And I was pretty eager to get the project off the needles at this point. Just added a few rows of twisted ribbing to the end.

In the end, the mitts turned out really cute. I loved my color choices and learned a lot about knitting colorwork mitts. Like that I strongly dislike knitting three-color colorwork rows. If you want to replicate what I did, there are detailed notes on my Ravelry project page (seizure warning).

• Pattern: Blended Scotch Mitts by Thea Colman

• Yarn: Tukuwool Fingering (100% wool, 250 m/50 g) in the colorways Auri (main color, heathered brown), Sake (undyed), Haave (dark purple), Valo (dark yellow), and Rae (dark brown)

• Needles: 2.5 mm

No actual whisky was consumed when taking these photos. *hic*

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