Hippocampus

By Tori Seierstad

Some animals have more decorative shapes than others, and the hippocampus – or seahorse - is one of them. The different shades of the fabulous Kauni yarn combined with a wavy feather and fan cuff turn a seahorse couple into a pair of beautiful mittens.

Photographs: Tori Seierstad

Size
Sizes: S (M) – see schematic for detailed sizing information
Shown in both sizes: Small in Rainbow colourway, Medium in Blue/Brown colourway

Requirements
Yarn: 1 x 100g skein Kauni Effektgarn (100% wool, 400m/100g)
Small mitts shown in colour: Rainbow (EQ)
Medium mitts shown in colour: Blue/Brown (EH)
For Small mitts, you will need approximately 45g/180m of MC and 22g/90m of CC
For Medium mitts, you will need less than 50g/200m of MC and 25g/100m of CC
You will need approximately 20m of yarn for one thumb, a little more than half of this being the MC.

Needles: 2.5mm/US1½ for Small mitts, 3.5mm/US4 for Medium mitts, or size needed to obtain correct tension. Depending on your preferred way of knitting small circumferences in the round, you will need either a set of 5 dpns, two small circulars, or one long circular for magic loop.

Tension
Small: 31sts and 38 rows = 10cm/4inches in pattern, after washing
Medium: 28sts and 35 rows = 10cm/4inches in pattern, after washing
Note: it doesn’t matter if your tension is a little looser than indicated before washing, as you can allow for a little shrinkage during washing. But if your tension is too tight, you should change to bigger needles.

Pattern Notes
For an experienced knitter, familiar with knitting stranded colourwork and small circumferences, this is an easy project. If you’re new to stranded colourwork and/or mittens, this will be a nice little challenge.

The mittens are knitted from cuff upwards. The cuff can be knitted in the round or back and forth.

The Kauni Effektgarn has long colour shifts. For the Blue/Brown mittens, I just made two blue and two orange/brownish balls from the skein. For the Rainbow mittens, I wanted the colour shifts to be shorter, so I made two magic balls for the MC (starting with red) and two for the CC (starting with light green/yellow). This way, the Rainbow mittens are not identical.

The pattern uses an afterthought thumb. If you use the suggested yarn, or another colour changing yarn, you should cut the yarn just after you’ve made the thumb opening and put aside the necessary amount of yarn, to make sure the colour of the thumb is not too different from the adjacent colour.

The mittens are not lined, so I recommend that your floats are no more than 5sts long, to avoid catching fingers in the loops.

Instructions for the small mittens are given first, with the large mittens in brackets. Where only one number is given, directions apply to both sizes. The charts are available with the printable version of the pattern.

Abbreviations
The Inside Loop list of standard abbreviations can be found here.

Instructions
You can choose to knit the cuff in the round or back and forth.

For knitting in the round:
With MC, cast on 54sts.
Round 1: k
Round 2: *[k1, yo] 3 times, k2tog 6 times, [k1, yo] 3 times**, repeat from * to ** twice
Round 3: p
Round 4: k

Repeat these 4 rounds 7 times in total. On the last round, inc 4(2)sts evenly around, 58(56)sts.

For knitting back and forth:
With MC, cast on 56 sts. (The pattern is worked over 54sts: k the first and the last stitch of each row for the selvedge, these sts should not be included in any stitch count.)
Row 1 (ws): p
Row 2: *[k1, yo] 3 times, k2tog 6 times, [k1, yo] 3 times**, repeat from * to ** twice
Rows 3 and 4: k

Repeat these 4 rows 7 times. On the last row, inc 2(0)sts evenly around, 58(56)sts. Cut yarn. The rest of the mitten should be knitted in the round.

Left mitten: slip 14(13)sts as if to purl before starting the stranded pattern according to chart This is so that the waves of the cuff pattern align with the front and back of the mitten . Follow chart A from right to left, and from bottom to top. (For size S, start at the green line).

Right mitten: slip 48(49)sts as if to purl as before, then commence the stranded pattern according to chart. Follow Chart A from left to right and from bottom to top. (For size S, start at the green line).

When you reach the end of the thumb gusset increases (red line in Chart A), work the 12 thumb sts using waste yarn of a different colour. Then move these 12sts back to the left needle and work them again using MC and CC, as per Chart A. Remember to put aside some yarn for the thumb at this point if you are using colour changing yarn.

Work chart until 10sts remain; decreases are shown in the chart. Break yarn and draw MC through remaining 10sts, pull tight.

Thumb:
Remove the waste yarn and place the 24 live thumb sts onto the needles. Pick up 2 additional sts at each side of the thumb (28sts total). Work Chart B from right to left and from bottom to top until 8sts remain; decreases are shown in the chart. Break yarn and draw MC through remaining 8sts, pull tight.

Finishing
Weave in ends. Sew the cuff together, if worked flat. Wash in cold water, allow for a little shrinking, if needed.

About the Yarn
Kauni Effektgarn is an Estonian variegated 100% wool yarn. An alternative yarn that would also work for this pattern is Noro Kureyon Sock.

About The Designer
Tori’s mother taught her to knit at age five. She has been playing with yarn ever since, making her own designs. Only recently she started to write her patterns down. Visit her blog, Torirot's Stitches.

Contact Tori