Knitting with Four Needles, for the second time

So two weeks ago we learned how to cast on and create a ribbed cuff on four needles for a mitten.

Today we are going to learn how to increase our stitching in order to accommodate for the thumb.

When we cast on, we did ten stitches on the first needle, ten on the second, and then eight on the third. The third is where this thumb will go. The unique thing about these mittens is that the thumb doesn’t stick out the side — it comes in front, like it actually does with your hand. So when you’re making the mitten for the other hand, you would want to reverse the order of your needles, and have it go eight, ten, ten, instead of what we’ve done here, which is ten, ten, eight. Sorry, I know that’s confusing. It makes sense later.

Try your cuff on to see if it’s long enough for your liking.

So in the next row, you want to start with the plain knit stitch. Apparently I knit upside-down, according to my grandmother, so I have to do it in purl. As you are knitting, you want to increase two stitches on each needle. I can’t really illustrate this properly, so for good diagrams on increasing your stitches you can look here or here.

On your third needle, the one with the eight stitches, knit the first four stitches, and then purl one, knit two, and purl the last one. The reason you do the purling here is to mark where the thumb is — it creates a line as it gets bigger and makes the thing easier to find.

So now that you’ve increased you want to knit an entire row (that’s going around the needles twice). Make sure to keep purling those two stitches to keep the line going.

When you get to the thumb marking, increase two more stitches inside the purl stitches, and purl the last one as usual. Knit two rows plain again, remembering to keep up marking those purl stitches. You can see here what my increased stitches look like.