I was thinking I wanted mitts with a pretty kinda Celtic cable for this yarn, and I found the pattern and cast on almost immediately.

Mods: I cast on an additional 4 stitches, because I’ve read it’s small for some, and my arms and hands are definitely bigger than those in the picture on the pattern. My stockinette gauge was 5 st/inch, which would be close to the called-for 36 st to cast on, but I know cables pull fabric in quite a bit.

12/3/2009: I finished knitting both and am wearing them now as I type! However, I may someday frog and reknit the thumbs and the final 8 rows of ribbing - both are too loose.

3/1/2011: I never wear these because the thumb is messy and uncomfortable and the mitts are too tight across the palm. I’m ripping back almost a whole repeat of the cable pattern and redoing the mitts with a thumb gusset instead of the little thumb flap for more evenness across the palm.

3/18/2011: Finished both! I started the thumb gusset on row two of the final repeat of the cable pattern, adding a M1R and M1L every other row for a total of 8 paired increases. After that, I CO 5 stitches, put 9 on a holder for the thumb, and in subsequent rows reduced a few stitches so that I was back to my original stitch count in time to knit the edge ribbing. The mitts fit much, much better. Very happy with them now!