icefishermitts

Scott fishes in the summer and in the winter; on land, sea, or ice; when the weather's good and when the weather's bad; daytime and nighttime; alone and with friends. Anybody who knows Scott knows he's a Fisherman, with a capital F. In other words, he loves fishing like I love knitting. And, see, I like it when he's fishing...because then I get to knit. ;-) So when he asked me to make him a pair of convertible gloves/mittens that would keep his fingers warm and he'd still be able to tie knots and bait his hook while ice fishing, I was happy to give it a go.

I used some vintage wool that was handed down to me from my Gram, along with the Broad Street Mittens pattern, which was easy to follow for this first-time glove knitter. I didn't care for the star decrease for the mitten shell, so I used a sock toe-like decrease along the sides to keep the flap flatter. You may notice that there's a regular glove thumb on that pattern, and that's how I originally knit them, but when they were finished, Scott was busy in the bakery, so Jesse tried them on and told me they would be better for ice fishing if the thumb had a flip-top lid too.

Down to the bakery I went, where Scott agreed that a flip-top thumb would be perfect. So I pulled out the top inch or so of the thumbs and improvised a cap. The guys said they didn't think loops and buttons would be necessary for holding the flip-tops back because they'd only be flipped open for a few minutes at a time, so I omitted that part of the pattern.

Oh, he's a happy Fisherman and says these will be great when he's on the ice. I too think they turned out well, and it's a darn good thing because gloves are fiddly things to knit and I would not be excited about the idea of making another pair. I wouldn't go so far as to say hell would have to freeze over before I'd knit another pair, but if it did, you can bet Scott would be drilling a hole to see if there were any fish down there!