These traditional shaped mittens feature a pair of herons on the mitten tops, with fish and wave motifs on the cuffs, and cattails on each palm.

The pattern provides charts for the colourwork and shaping, and detailed written instructions. The notes are clear and concise, while still providing lots of support for knitters who might be new to this style of project.

When testing the pattern, and sharing samples among friends, I found that the mittens fit most women’s hand sizes, even when we wear different glove sizes. There were a few exceptions. One tester with particularly narrow hands (palm not much wider than wrist) and another with wide and short hands, found that their finished mittens didn`t fit them. The pattern notes include suggestions for accommodating fit issues such as these.

For proportional sizing changes, the pattern works by adjusting needle size or yarn weight, working on the same numbers of stitches as charted.

Pattern calls for one 50-g ball of sock yarn (Patons Kroy), in each of two colours, although I completed a sample pair using 25-g balls (Spindrift) and, probably because of the finer weight, one ball of each colour was still enough.

There are lots of options for colour selection, including solids, variegated, sharp contrast, or more subtle harmonies.