Review: Broad Street Mitten Pattern

Someone came to me on Etsy, wanting some convertible mittens in Harry Potter's Gryffindor colors. I've never made anything quite like mittens with a flip cap on them before, so I decided to see what I could make. I found a pattern for the "Broad Street Mitten" and thought it seemed easy enough. Here is my review of what I did.

First, check out the pattern here: http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall02/PATTbroadstreet.html 

Here's what they should look like when finished:

  But mine turned out a little different. Now, granted I modified the pattern a bit to fit my needs, but I followed the dimensions exactly. Here are mine:

They are HUGE! The creator said she had large hands, but geez! My husband can't even wear these. I haven't decided if I'm even going to bother selling these to the nice customer. The cuff fits really well, but it's where the palm widens that it gets all huge. I have no idea why. I used the exact needles and yarn gauge and everything.

To get to down to review basics, these gloves were tedious. When working with size 2 needles, your fingers get sore. The stitching is so tight it's hard to maneuver the needles at all. The pattern itself wasn't so hard to follow, but the last few instructions needed some clarification. I couldn't tell where or why I was supposed to be sewing the ribbed cuff down on the sides of the hand. I was thinking that would sew my gloves shut. I eventually figured out what she meant, though. These gloves took about 12 hours of work, and I don't think I'll be making any more. I'm going to look for another pattern to fit my needs because this one came out massive. Maybe my neighbor's husband can wear them. Hm....

My recommendations: if you're making these for a man, they will work great. If you're a woman, they will swallow your hands up. They will give you eye strain to make, and your fingers will want to bleed. The results look nice enough, but they probably won't fit. This pattern makes good practice to improve your knitting skills, but not much else.