Wrist Warmers

I am never without a knitting project. I use short, bamboo needles that fit in my purse. I can knit during a meeting, at the coffee house, even at dinner, if it looks like a long evening. I knit in the car, if I don't have to drive.

This time of year I get requests for the wrist warmers pattern, a good pocket or purse project. It's really simple, even fore a beginner. My basic pattern is like this: knit a 6.5 inch square in the pattern of your choice, fold it over, sew up the sides, leaving at 1 1/2 inches open for your thumb, beginning about an inch from the top.

If you use a worsted weight yarn, use size 7 needles and start with 42 stitches. Fingering weight yarn is best on size 5 needles, and for these Rusty Garden Ornament items on the right I cast on 38 stitches.

These sizes are based on a Woman's Medium. You make them wider by casting on more stitches and longer by knitting more rows. 

 You can get fancy with patterns and stitches: dots, hearts, cables... The green warmers above are created with the seed stitch, which is all knit, purl, knit, purl: knitting into the purls and purl into the knits.

I started with ribbing on the red and black item on the needles below and increased one stitch at each end before I started with the Midnight Black for a total of 36 stitches. The ribbing adds a nice touch and creates more of a cuff for the wrist.

One of the joys of these little gift items is how little time they take to make, unless you decide to create a Santa Face or get tricky with other colorways. I like to keep it simple so I can knit and watch a movie, talk with friends, listen to an audio book, but not all at once.