Muffatees, Mittens and a Mitt, oh my!

The muffatees, or wrist warmers, in the upper right are the Corkscrew Pattern Muffatees from Exercises in Knitting (1856) by Cornelia Mee (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21032). They were knit on 3.75 bamboo double pointed needles in Pomegranate Nature Spun Worsted wool.

The 18th century gauntlet gloves are adapted from various patterns and information on discussion sites on the web, and fitted to my own hands. They have a garter stitch edge (no ribbing) and are knit in undyed hand spun wool from local historic breed of Dorset-Wiltshire sheep on 3.25mm double pointed needles with a gauge/tension of 7 1/2 stitches/inch.

The idea for the pattern of the brown mitts may be found at http://www.geocities.com/vintageconnection/VintageConnection--KNITladysmitts.html. This pattern, however, is an example of several historic ones that I have found that do not match the illustration and contain errors in the text. There are no instructions for a bracelet cuff as shown in the illustration. The cuff is a plain stocking/stockinette stitch edge. I chose to knit two garter stitch rows on my edge. I had to rewrite the second part of the pattern, correcting the errors, but did not like the look of it when finished. After ripping out the glove back down to the upper blue design, I redesigned it to tightly fit my own hand and worked out a diamond pattern that is larger than the original one but a better fit numerically into my stitch count. These mitts are being knit on 3.00mm double pointed bone needles (not pictured) in some wonderful old Beehive brown wool and a dusky blue Morehouse lace weight wool at a gauge/tension of 7 1/2/inch.

The upper photo is of gauntlet mittens, with an historically incorrect/undocumented inner ribbed cuff, knit on 4.00 wooden double pointed needles in Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride wool/mohair blend from my stash with a gauge/tension of 4 stitches/inch. They are extremely warm and I wear them almost every day in the winter.