The Bernies – My tribute to Bernie Sanders, whose iconic mittens were made by Jen Ellis, a Vermont teacher who sewed them from upcycled sweaters. These use the same colors and motifs around the entire hand, knitting in the round with increases for thumb gussets, and then picking up stitches to finish the thumbs.

The pattern is written for those who are familiar with basic mitten knitting and has not been extensively tested. It is only available in one size, but experienced knitters may be able to adapt the gauge for larger sizes (using larger needles or thicker yarn) or adapt the pattern accordingly.

Knitting the second mitten: Follow the exact same pattern to knit the second mitten (the pattern works for either hand).

Edit: 30 Jan 2021: Clarification for thumb decreases: With this pattern, your thumb will have an uneven number of stitches (17). When doing k2tog decreases, the final stitch can be knit together with the stitch that follows it (the first k2tog stitch of the round), so 8 stitches remain.

Edit: 28 Jan 2021: Row 25 was missing, so the pattern and chart have been updated (v4). I have also made the “M” symbols on the chart easier to see. Thank you to everyone for your helpful feedback, which is improving this pattern for everyone!

Edit: 27 Jan 2021: Written instructions for row 7 corrected, as follows:

Increases on thumb gusset:

On row 4, there are three increases: two between the markers (starting the thumb gusset) and one right after the marker: at this point, there should be 3 st for the gusset, and 40 st for the body of the mitten.

On row 7, there are three more increases, all between the markers for the thumb gusset. These increases should be at either side, and one in the middle (doesn’t really matter where). With these increases, you should now have an even number of stitches for the thumb gusset (6 st).

There are two increases for the thumb gusset on Lines 10, 13, 16, 19, and 22, resulting in an even number of stitches at the end (16 st for the thumb gusset).

Edit: 24 Jan 2021: Text under chart corrected to state that the chart reads from right to left.