Elegant Felted Mittens

Winter's on its way so it's time to pull out the knitting needles. Here's a pair of felted mittens that I made last week. This is an easy & free pattern that I found on-line. It's called "Elegant Felted Mittens." Felting is easy, very forgiving if you're not a great knitter like me, & best of all ~ extremely warm!

I modified the pattern to make the overall mitten shorter by reducing the cuff to only 4 row instead of the original 16. I also just used the two strands of yarn instead of the "fizz" yarn for the cuff. I also crocheted a mitten string ~ is there a term that's used for the long strand that keeps mittens together & is worn inside your coat? I'm sure there is but I don't know what it is.

Lately, I'm all William's mittens & mine on the "strings." It's so much easier to keep track of the mates. I felted the cord for these mittens & it turned out nice & thick. After it was dry from the felting I sewed it to each mitt.

The design on the top of the hand is needle felting. I used strands of wool & some spun wool with a special needle that's used to poke the yarn threads into the existing felted wool. As you poke, the yarns intermingle & the design becomes felted into the main piece. I think I need to add some beads next!