I live in south-western Ontario, and my hands are always cold in winter. I know I’m not alone.

In my quest to find the ultimate warm woolly mittens, I came across a number of old “fishermen mittens” patterns. Apparently these types of mittens were not only wind- resistant, but also kept wet or dry hands warm.

Although I don’t fish, and I’m not a man, I decided to write a simple felted mitten pattern for those of us with cold hands.

These mittens are knit at normal yarn gauge (instead of big needles), and then felted. The resulting fabric is quite dense and warm.

Any 100% wool aran or bulky yarn will work fine as long as you knit to gauge.

Extra Info:

Cuff = 1in
Hand to thumb = 6.2in (6.6in, 7in)
Thumb to start of dec = 5.2in (6in, 6.8in)
Finger dec = 1.6in (1.8in, 2in)
Length of thumb = 3.4in (4in, 4.6in)
Thumb dec = 0.8in (0.8in, 1in)

Please note that if you do not knit to gauge, the mittens may not fit!! And if you use different yarn, it may need less or more felting!

I found a mistake in the pattern for the medium sized mitts and had to amend it. If you downloaded the pattern prior to 16 Nov, please go and download the new version :-) Sorry for the inconvenience.