Crocheted Mittens and Fingerless Gloves For Little Hands

With our recent spell of frigid weather, I was inspired to find patterns that would work well to protect our little ones' hands and fingers. The featured, pink, and white color scheme looks toward Valentine's Day and Heart month.  I already have a line of fingerless gloves that will fit children from 4 years to about 9 years.  The flowered gloves have been a hit at various holiday fairs.  I even had one mom buy a pair of adult fingerless gloves with a matching pair for her daughter. However, before I researched this article, I did not have any gloves for infants and toddlers.  A friend of my son's requested a pair of mittens for his 1 year old son.  He wanted a set with a string joining  the mittens so that they would not get separated or lost.   I finished them in a bright red for delivery in early December and even made an animal hat to go with them.This gift got me thinking, and this post is the result.

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That first pair was crocheted from a pattern from triflesntreasures.com  (http://www.triflesntreasures.com/my-attempt-at-blogging/free-crochet-pattern1?crlt.pid=camp.zvzmoUZIgeDn#.Wlk80EtG1Gz)  It can also be found on Pinterest.
(https://www.pinterest.com/pin/97390410668507874/).  The thumbless mitten is basically a pounch stitched in half double crochet.  There are countless ways for decorating these mittens.  My 1 year old granddaughter is wearing the mismatched pair decorated with stripes and hearts.  The second pair in red and pink stripes.The crocheted string connecting the two mittens is optional.

A couple of months ago I was playing around with granny squares and transforming them into fingerless gloves.  The pair pictured below takes those experiments into the babywear category. 

• To crochet these little mittens in about a 12 month size, use a G hook with worsted weight yarn. 
• Continuing with my Valentine theme, I chose red, pink, and white.  The Granny Square has 3 rounds: red center, r2, white, r3 pink. 
• Make 4 pieces. Weave in ends. 
• Hold two pieces together, wrong sides touching. I like the crisp edge to show.  Single crochet up one side of square.
• Finish off and weave in ends.
• On opposite side of square find the spot just above the cluster in row 3.  Using the same color as in row 3, attach yarn and SC to edge. 
• Turn at right angle and single crochet around area that will become the wrist. 
• Alternating with Font Post Double Crochet and Back Post Double Crochet, stitch around the mitten for 2 or 3 rows as you desire. Fasten off and weave in end.
• At top end, attach same color yarn and stitch to close thumbhole opening.
• Single crochet around 3 rows. Fasten off and weave in ends. 
• Follow the same procedure for the other two granny square pieces.
  
• If I want to make the glove larger, I could use an H hook.  Another strategy would be to HDC around the squares before I attach them to each other. I would add a row of stitching to bottom and top of glove as described in regular directions.

My all time favorite fingerless glove for children is a pattern by Two Little C's:  Cute Crochet for all ages. the pattern features toddler size, child, and men's sizes.   A woman's size is also available on another post.  As noted above, I have been using the child size for years and have sold many gloves this season.  The pattern directions are simple and easy to replicate.  It wasn't until I began this latest project that I noticed that there were pattern directions for the toddler size.  The designer prefers to make the toddler size wider than the child size because she feels that toddler hands are chubby. The resulting image of the glove is quite boxy.  As this has not been my experience with children, I altered the pattern to use the narrower width of the child pattern with the length dimension of the toddler pattern.  The color and decoration accents are endless.

Flowers, stripes, and decorative buttons are just a few ways to add personality to your gloves

I tend to crochet gloves for girls more than for boys.  Boys like the bright colors, stripes and sports related buttons.  I might even try a couple of camouflage mitts for next year.

Kids love animal features on their gloves.  The owl design was taken from The Green Dragonfly (https://thegreendragonfly.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/owl-mittens) The designer uses a crocheted rectangle as her glove base.  The rectangle is folded in half and stitched on the long side, leaving room for the thumb hole.  For my fingerless glove pair, I crocheted matching owls is red,white, and pink. I used the glove base  from the Two C's pattern noted above.  I adore these mittens, but they took hours to make.  There is no way I could sell them at a reasonable price using any sensible pricing guide.  Therefore, I will just hold them for my granddaughter until her hands get big enough. She loves everything in red.

Projects for next year would include gloves with different animal motifs and mittens with a thumb.  I will be continuing with the valentine  color scheme and motifs in the weeks leading up to the holiday.  I  invite your feedback on these tiny treasures and welcome your thoughts experiences, photos, and ideas.  Crocheting little mitts for little hands and fingers has been delightful.