Sep 25, 20203 min read

Halloween Mystery Mittens 2020

October, the scariest time of the year, is just around the corner. And that means the Halloween Mystery Mittens are back!

What?

If you participated in the mystery knit-along last year, you know the drill. Halloween Mystery Mittens 2020 are a pair of stranded colorwork mittens inspired by a classic suspense movie. This year's movie is not exactly horror but more of a psychological thriller that portrays a character’s slow descent into madness… or is it all just a deceitfully schemed plot?

When?

Scenes from this classic movie by a master director are depicted in these colorwork mittens that are released as a mystery knit-along in 9 clues over the month of October 2020.

New clues come out every Monday and Thursday starting October 1. The last clue drops on October 29 so you even have a couple of days to spare before Halloween. There might not be trick or treating this year for social distancing reasons but at least you'll have a new pair of seasonally appropriate mittens.

For my contrasting color I used Holst Garn Supersoft in the colorway 'Bokhara'.

On Yarn & Colors

To knit the Halloween Mystery Mittens 2020 you need two colors of light fingering or fingering-weight yarn, approx. 50 g of each color.

Choose two colors with a good amount of contrast between them. Solid or semi-solid yarns are ideal for both colors. You can also use a slow gradient with a long color repeat as one color. I wouldn't recommend using busily variegated yarns, though.

The colorwork motifs make more sense with a light main color and a dark contrasting color. The colors may be swapped but this creates a film negative effect. Black and white is a classic combination for a reason but you don't have to stick with neutrals. For my sample pair (which you'll see later) I used Holst Garn Noble in the colorway Cygnet (pearl gray) as the main color and Holst Garn Supersoft in the colorway Bokhara (dark red) as the contrasting color.

For my main color I used Holst Garn Noble in the colorway 'Cygnet'.

Techniques & Tools

The colorwork pattern in these mittens contains long floats. I recommend brushing up on the Ladderback Jacquard technique before the MKAL starts but this is not essential. There are helpful links to other techniques for managing floats included in the pattern.

I've found a colorwork yarn guide (sometimes also known as a Norwegian knitting thimble) helpful in maintaining color dominance in colorwork but, again, this is not essential.

What is essential, though, is needles! I used 2.25 mm or US #1 needles but pick whichever needle size gives you the gauge of 31 sts × 40 rounds over 10 cm/4". Right and left mittens are worked in parallel so you'll need two sets of needles, be it double-pointed ones, short circular needles, or long circular needles for working in magic loop.

How to Join?

To participate in the MKAL, purchase the pattern either on Ravelry (seizure warning!) or on Payhip. If you join my mailing list before October 1, you'll get 15% off the pattern price!

You'll receive an email notification once a new clue is ready for download. Even if you buy the pattern on Payhip, you can have it delivered to your Ravelry account. Just enter your contact information at checkout so I know who to send it to.

Here's something that's different this year: all proceeds of pattern sales made off-Ravelry will be donated to IBE, the International Bureau for Epilepsy for reasons that will become obvious as the mystery progresses.

Throughout the KAL I'll also be awarding free patterns to participants! There's three ways to join the knit-along.

share your mittens on Instagram with the hashtag #halloweenmysterymittens
take the quiz and correctly identify — or guess! — the inspiration movie (this quiz opens on October 5 once Clue 2 is released)
post a photo of your finished mittens in my Ravelry group by November 1 (again, seizure warning!)