Radio Frequency Mittens

Radio Frequency Mittens by Mandy Spoth

Project Overview

The Radio Frequency Mittens are an advanced-level knitting pattern designed by Mandy Spoth. This design evolved from experimentation with snowflake motifs, ultimately resulting in mittens featuring a striking geometric pattern inspired by the palm design of earlier prototypes. The mittens showcase bold dark and light contrasts through a clever color reversal technique, where the background and main colors swap positions in the second half of each mitten.

What Is Being Made

These are a pair of mittens constructed using the knitting technique. The mittens feature reversible thumbs in the sore-style construction, allowing them to be worn on either hand without modification. The design emphasizes visual impact through high-contrast colorwork and geometric patterning across the hand and palm areas.

Knitting Techniques Used

• Long tail cast-on method — Used to establish the initial 58 stitches on a double-pointed needle
• Braid stitch — Forms the decorative cuff at the mitten opening
• Colorwork — Two-color knitting creates the geometric Radio Frequency pattern with intentional contrast reversal between the first and second halves
• Sore-style thumb construction — Allows the mittens to function ambidextrously
• Circular knitting — Stitches are distributed across four double-pointed needles and joined into the round

Stitches and Stitch Work

The pattern employs a special braid stitch at the cuff, which is worked flat before joining into the round. The main body uses stockinette stitch as the foundation for the two-color geometric pattern. The Radio Frequency motif itself is worked through stranded colorwork, where both colors are carried throughout each row to create the contrasting design.

Materials and Yarn Specifications

The Radio Frequency Mittens are designed for sport weight yarn. The pattern calls for Lanaloft Sports Weight yarn from Brown Sheep Co., which is 100% wool with yardage of 145 yards per 133 meters per 50-gram ball (1.75 ounces). One ball each of two colors is required:

• Color A: LL33 Manor Gray
• Color B: LL03 Black Bear

The mittens are worked on double-pointed needles (DPNs), with the pattern beginning on a single needle before stitches are distributed across four needles for circular knitting.

Difficulty Level

This pattern is rated as advanced, reflecting the complexity of managing two-color stranded colorwork, coordinating multiple double-pointed needles, and executing the specialized braid stitch cuff and sore-style thumb construction.