I’m Knitting As Fast As I Can

Airplane and hotel knitting

Car knitting

Outlet mall bargains

Trader Joe’s favorite

Sin City entertainment

Happy daughter

Interested in my forchette thumb but don’t have access to Principles of Knitting? I found a reference to the thumb in Mary Thomas’s Knitting Book. See what you can find when you look.

Don’t have Mary Thomas’s book? It’s easily purchased from Amazon or a big box book store. It was originally published in 1938 and the Dover reprint is an unabridged republication. Despite its age and brevity (and a disturbing reference to “coloured knitting” on page 113), it is shockingly comprehensive. Not the perfect substitute for Principles of Knitting, but definitely a port in the storm.

I’ve moved on from the mitts for now to focus on a new design. As you can see, the first attempt (at the top of the photo) was . . . shall we say . . . unsuccessful.

I’m a committed wearer of fingerless mitts.  I have really short fingers and small hands so gloves don’t fit me well.  And, while  I love mittens, I concede that sometimes they’re not practical.

That said, I haven’t met a thumb gusset I like or that fits my hand.  In fact, my favorite fingerless mitts have no thumb at all; they’re just armwarmers:

But my quest for the perfect thumb is now over.

While thumbing (hahahaha) through my precious copy of Principles of Knitting, I read June Hemmons Hiatt’s description of a thumb forchette.  She doesn’t actually explain how to work one (except in the most cursory sense) and the description seems to assume it’s a technique that everyone uses.  Aaah, a challenge!  So I set to work figuring out the best way to make this elusive thumb.

Basically, it’s a little like the underarm gusset of a Gansey sweater. This first attempt was worked by casting on stitches using the backward loop method.  But I think the neater way is to use a provisional cast on.

But what’s the perfect thumb without the perfect top? One of my favorite things about Toast is that the armwarmers can be scrunched up around your wrist or pulled all the way down over your entire hand.  Of course, that’s only possible because they don’t have a thumb.  When I was bemoaning the trade-off to a knitter friend, she mentioned that she’d seen a mitt project on Ravelry with a fold-over top.  Must investigate!

A quick search through Ravelry projects uncovered a few samples.  This one has an interesting cuff, this one was worked entirely in ribbing, and this one looked very much like the mitt I was envisioning.  But when I saw this lovely fingerless mitt by Anne, I knew that was the project my friend was talking about. The last piece of the mitt puzzle had fallen into place. 

Add in the perfect yarn, Madelinetosh Tosh Merino DK, and the quest was over.

So, there you have it.  The perfect thumb + the perfect top + the perfect yarn = the perfect mitt.  Thanks June and Anne and Amy (and the unsung hero who invented the knit stitch).

P.S. If you want to learn how to make the thumb, I’m teaching a class at my LYS in April.