The Hands Off Canada Mittens are a reaction to the political landscape of early 2025. It is my hope that with this mitten pattern, and the attached charts, I can provide Canadians and allies a means to not only show their pride and support -- but also to work through their frustration without resorting to endless anxious doom-scrolling. Hopefully, the somewhat repetitive but also challenging colourwork can help distract -- or focus -- you.

This pattern is not tech-edited or tested. This is more of a general recipe with some charts that is based off of the traditional Norwegian Selbu mittens, and so this pattern is somewhat difficult if you have never knit that kind of pattern before. I recommend looking up one of the many amazing videos explaining how to knit Selbu mittens on Youtube if this is you. An adventurous beginner has to start somewhere, and Selbu mittens are very easy once you crack the code!

Edit: Wow! I am blown away by the response. Thank you all for your messages and kind words. We are definitely living in interesting times, but it is so reassuring to hear from people all over responding with support and care. Happy knitting, and elbows up! :)

Pattern Information: (Make sure you have the latest versions of the charts!)

Yarn - Any sport weight or heavy fingering yarn, with approximately 50g of white (main colour) and 50g of red yarn (contrast colour).
Consider using yarn produced in Canada, or owned by a Canadian company. An example of this is Briggs and Little, which produces yarns (like Sport or Durasport) that are very similar to the one I used. A more accessible option since they are usually available at Michaels is Patons, who have yarns like Kroy Sock that could work instead of the yarn I used.
You can also ask for advice from your LYS to help find a Canadian yarn that will work best for this kind of pattern and is similar to what I have from Rauma Garn.
(I have used Rauma Finull which has 175 metres per 50 g ball)

Needles - 2.5 mm, either circular or DPNs

Gauge - 28 st by 30 rows per 10 cm in pattern colourwork. I knit somewhat loosely, go up a needle size if you knit tightly and want the same sized mittens as me. Your gauge swatch can be the wrist chart, but do pay attention or else you will be gifting your pair to someone with smaller or larger hands. Although… maybe that’s not a bad thing?
(There is a typo in the recipe document, it should be 30 rounds where it says 15 rounds)

Sizes - One size, but definitely more for adult women. My pair are 11 cm wide and 26 cm long including the wrist, 19 cm without it.
I like mittens to have positive ease and be looser on my hands so that they will fit me through heavy use and washes (mittens tend to felt smaller over time). Definitely change your yarn weight or needle size to adjust whether you would like the mittens to be larger or smaller.

Colour dominance and Floats - A reminder that it is important to pay attention to colour dominance when following these charts so that the words and motifs will show up and stand out. If the background is white, your dominant colour should be red. If the background is red, your dominant colour should be white.
Additionally there are sections where you have to catch floats. With such high contrast between MC and CC, it is important to not catch floats in the same spots or else you will have laddering. If you can, try to catch floats immediately above the same colours in the previous round. For example, if you are knitting a long sequence with white, catch the red yarn above a red stitch so that it is less noticeable.

Let me know if you see any errors and I will fix the pattern. You are welcome to use the charts towards other projects, but please credit them to me if you do. I encourage you to make as many as you would like, and you are welcome to sell anything you create on a non-industrial scale.