One of my favorite characters in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series is Lord John, who is currently on the edge of Quebec (at least on my Kindle reader he is), in The Custom of the Army, an Outlander Novella…While Lord John isn’t fighting in the snow, the weather is soon to change on him, and New England, as I type this, is under a blanket of white.

Lord John is going to need felted wool mittens. This pattern is a faithful reproduction of an 18th century trade mitten made from Boston to Quebec city. Women would produce these as piecework and they were traded or sold to sailors and lumbermen, the shaped curve of the mitten is designed to make gripping tools or lines easier, and the mittens can also be switched, hand to hand, reversing the wear.

I rather thought Lord John would be a fancy carriage glove, but no.. he’s a very unassuming gray felted mitten.