These may appear to be simple striped mitts, but they have a secret. Turn them round and round and you will never find a seam or a jog. Instead, the stripes ‘walk’ continuously from the wrist to the knuckles, all the way up the mitt.

The key to achieving this effect is to layer the colors a little bit at a time. Each color is worked for only 75% of the total stitches, with the next color worked directly overtop it. Retaining a few live stitches in each of the four colors prevents the stripe pattern from being interrupted.

Besides learning a new technique, these mitts offer a great opportunity to play with color. Choose three yarns of a similar hue and add a contrast, as for the mitts shown here, or use the same color twice to produce two stripes on a neutral background. Alternatively, create subtle fraternal mitts by changing the order of the stripes.

So grab a few spare skeins of yarn and make a pair for yourself or a friend. You’ll find that these stripes work up quickly (despite the fact that they don’t jog)!

For a general tutorial on how to achieve jog-less stripes in the round, see:
http://brineydeepdesigns.blogspot.com/2009/01/tutorial-jog-less-stripes.html