Calla Mitts

The Calla Mitts are an excellent introduction to thumbs, as well as cables and bobbles! This guide has some supplemental information that you may find useful. Those new to cables & bobbles may prefer to make their first pair of mitts without mohair, as the mohair tangles easily and makes unraveling stitches difficult. 

Thumbs

These mitts show you how to make a thumb gusset, which is an essential part of mitts, mittens, and gloves! On every other row, you're going to increase one stitch on each side of the thumb gusset. 

Once you've made room for your thumb, you'll bind off the thumb stitches while knitting in the round, then knit 2 together on each side of the thumb gusset to make a hole for your thumb. 

Bobbles 3 ways

The joy of knitting in the round is that you never have to turn your work! Unless you're knitting bobbles. But that's why we use the backward knitting technique to make our bobbles. We like to imagine we're a tiny person below our knitting, looking back up at it, and envision ourselves purling. 

The fundamentals of a 3 stitch bobble involve a total of 5 rows:

• Row 1: Increase 2 stitches so you have a total of 3 stitches in the next stitch
• Rows 2-4: Work 3 rows of stockinette in those 3 stitches
• Row 5: Decrease 2 stitches so you're back to the original 1 stitch

How you work the 3 rows of stockinette is up to you. This video first shows Backward Knitting (right-handed Continental method on the first row of backward knitting, and right-handed English method on the last row of backward knitting) and then shows the traditional method of turning your work. 

Cables without a cable needle

There are lots of ways to work cables without a cable needle. Alison loves this method, where you rearrange your stitches first to get them in the right order, then work your cable. This method can be used for just about any cable, but as the cables get wider (and as gauge gets tighter), it gets more difficult. It's also more difficult when working with 2 strands as shown in this video, because you have to get all the loops. But with a little practice, it works out!

The general rules are 

• when doing a RIGHT CROSS, slip stitches knitwise through the front
• when doing a LEFT CROSS, slip stitches knitwise through the back

If you're doing a 1x1 right cross, you slip 2 stitches knitwise through the front, then slip each stitch back to the holding needle one at a time. If it's a 2x2 right cross you slip 4 stitches knitwise through the front, then slip 2 stitches together back to the holding needle, untwisting, and the slip the remaining 2 together, untwisting.