Whirly Girl Fingerless Mitts
Basic recipe:
Materials: Worsted weight yarn, Size 7 dpns, 2 stitch markers
Cast on 40 stitches, divide with 12 on needles 1 & 3, and 16 on needle #2. Join, being careful not to twist. Use a safety pin or other marker to show beginning of round.
Knit 3 rounds of K2, P2
Round 4: *K2tog, K through1st stitch, slide 2 stitches to right needle together, P2, K2, P2* and repeat around.
Continue this pattern until the wristlet comes to the base of your thumb.
Thumb gusset:
K2, P1, pm, Make 1, pm, P1 to set off the area for the thumb gusset, and complete the row in pattern.
Next row, continue in pattern, knitting across the gusset section
On alternate rows, you (a) make a stitch after the first marker and before the second, and knit all other stitches between markers, and (b) treat the gusset area as all knit stitches.
Continue in this manner until you have knit 13 stitches across the gusset.
On the last gusset row, bind off all gusset stiches and continue in pattern. On the following row, snug up the yarn between the two purl stitches on each side of the gusset to make it nice and tidy.
Continue in pattern until your desired length – anything from even with the gusset to covering almost to the first knuckle of the fingers.
If you want to make these for your own helicopter pilot to include the open palm, continue in pattern after the gusset until you are just below the soft pad at the base of the fingers. 4 stiches palm-wise (it will be a different direction on each mitt) bind off enough stitches to allow the palm contact with the control stick (I bound off 8, but if your pilot has hands larger than a delicately-boned lady, use your own judgement), and on the next row, cast on the same number of stitches, continuing in pattern until the desired length is achieved.
The twisted rib takes 4 stitches, so any multiple of 4 stitches is the appropriate cast-on number if you want to change sizing or yarn.
