Drifty Mittens

Drifty Mittens by Mandy Spoth

Project Overview

The Drifty Mittens are an advanced-level knitting pattern designed by Mandy Spoth, inspired by a winter wonderland scene viewed from a cabin kitchen window. This downloadable PDF pattern offers knitters two distinct construction options: a Color Stranded version featuring multi-color colorwork, and a Solid version for a simpler, single-color approach. Both versions are worked in bulky yarn for quick holiday knitting projects.

What Is Being Made

These are knitted mittens designed as winter accessories. The pattern provides complete instructions for creating a pair of mittens with a fitted cuff and hand section, featuring decreases that shape the mitten structure from wrist to fingertips.

Yarn and Materials

The Drifty Mittens are worked in Lamb's Pride Bulky yarn from Brown Sheep Co., a durable blend of 85% wool and 15% mohair. Each skein provides 125 yards (114 meters) and weighs 113 grams (4 ounces).

• Color Stranded Version: Requires 1 skein each of three colors—M11 White Frost (Color A), M05 Onyx black (Color B), and M03 Gray Heather (Color C)
• Solid Version: Requires 2 skeins of M03 Gray Heather

Needles required are US 9 (5.5 mm) double-pointed needles (DPNs), or needles of your preferred type for working in the round.

Knitting Techniques and Stitches

The Drifty Mittens employ several fundamental and intermediate knitting techniques appropriate for advanced knitters:

• Long-tail cast-on method: Used to begin the mittens with 44 stitches, providing an elastic and durable foundation
• Knitting in the round: The mittens are constructed circularly using double-pointed needles, with a placed marker to track the beginning of each round
• Stockinette stitch: The primary stitch throughout the cuff and hand sections, created by knitting every round
• Decreases: Strategic k2tog (knit two together) decreases are worked at intervals to shape the mitten—first reducing 44 stitches to 40 stitches, then to 36 stitches, and finally to 32 stitches as the pattern progresses
• Color stranded knitting: The Color Stranded version incorporates two-color stranded colorwork, a technique requiring the knitter to carry yarn colors across the back of the work while switching between them to create the pattern

The pattern begins with a 4-round ribbed or garter cuff worked in Color A (for the stranded version) or solid color (for the solid version), followed by decreasing rounds that shape the hand and transition toward the fingers. The structured decrease sequence—working [K9, k2tog], then [K8, k2tog], then [K7, k2tog]—creates a gradual taper characteristic of well-fitted mittens.

Difficulty Level

Rated as advanced, the Drifty Mittens pattern assumes knitters are comfortable with circular knitting on DPNs, reading pattern instructions, managing multiple decreases, and (for the Color Stranded version) executing stranded colorwork techniques where two colors are carried and manipulated simultaneously.