My first crochet tutorial and pattern!

Well, I have taken the plunge and have tried out my first crochet tutorial. Of all things, its for a pair of Iron Man fingerless mittens!

My son, who is 18 and at uni for his first year, wanted some to wear while working in his room. This makes me very proud on several levels!

When he first showed me pictures of these gloves I thought they would be impossible. I had never made a pair of gloves or mittens in crochet, or using any other method either. But a few weeks later I got my subscription copy of Simply Crochet magazine.

They had a pattern for a pair of fingerless gloves in a black and white houndstooth check. It didn’t look that complicated so I thought I would give them a try. I made one that was OK but that I learned a lot from doing it. Then I made a pair to wear.

I chose Stylecraft DK yarn that I already had in cream and gold. This combo looks a lot better than the original black and white. I think so anyway.

I also made them ‘in the round’ not as a flat strip that is then sewn up at the end. Not so many loose ends to sort out 🙂

Revisiting the idea of Iron Man Mitts

When my son saw that I had made a pair of fingerless mitts for myself he was a bit put out. So I looked back at the internet pics and realised that now I knew how to structure a fingerless mitten, I could probably have a go at the pair he was so keen on having.

I started off when he was at home from uni one weekend and made a prototype mitt so that he could keep trying it on. I worked out the depth of the cuff and the position of the thumb hole and how many rows I needed to add to the main body of the mitt to fit his hand up to the first finger joint.

He went back off to uni and I spend a couple of evenings refining the pattern and made him two matching gloves.

When I posted pics on Facebook, I had some nice comments and one enquiry about whether I had the pattern. As the mitts don’t take that long, they seemed like a good project to do as my first ever crochet tutorial. If you want to take a look, the links are below:

Part 1 – Iron Man fingerless mittens – the cuff

Part 2 – Iron Man fingerless mittens – the glove body and zapper.

Download a printable pdf pattern

You can also find out more about Simply Crochet magazine. I have been subscribing for a while – some of the patterns are really good and I enjoy it. I also like Inside Crochet too.

What I learned from doing the tutorial

• Tutorials are VERY hard and time consuming!
• Red is the worst possible colour to photograph – it dazzles the camera because its so bright.
• I need to find a way to mark my photos with a Crafternoon Treats mark to stop spammy craft sites using them so easily with no backlinks.
• I need to get better at taking photographs…
• I enjoy making crochet things that are wearable! Crochet clothes, who’d have thought it???