I fell in love with the name Darkstar and wondered what design to put with it.
It started with the coffee. My son Ben came home from visiting Maine with a bag of Darkstar roast coffee from Rock City Coffee as a gift. The beans were so glossy and black. Our neighbor Lindsay had worked there, she and her husband even ordered their wedding cake from them. I thought the name Darkstar could become a pattern if I thought about Lindsay; interested in just about everything, likes to wear deep brown and yellow, I met her during the solar eclipse in 2018, her hands are often cold. Ah-ha! Slightly space-y crocheted Mitts.
The Darkstar Mitts Pattern is available for $7.50 from Payhip, Loveknitting and Ravelry.
Darkstar Mitts are like a one take video, you can crochet the whole hand with just one strand of yarn (two if you use a contrasting edge as I did), and if you encase the initial yarn end as you go, there is only one end to weave in when you are done. I wanted to revisit Half Moon Mitts, but make the thumb gusset a sharper angle, even if that angle meant short rows, not just increases. This meant interesting technical writing just as I was recovering from surgery. It took a lot longer to write than usual, but it also gave me confidence that I could heal, think, write, and create again (at least with the help of Lindsey Stevens and Randy Cavaliere, technical editors). There are charts, illustrations, and color coded written instructions. The thumb is now comfortable, a bit new, and easy to do!
Darkstar Mitts are symmetrical (each hand is the same), so the instructions are shorter. It turns out that when the thumb is centered, the seam in the hand is in the middle of the back of the pinkie finger, which means the wearer can see any decoration there, but it’s not fiddly to place it! Also that decorative seam can’t get in the way of using the wearer’s hands, which is the whole point of mitts in the first place.
I’ve written 3 easy decorative seams to display there, but it’s really a canvas for you to try out an edging from a stitch dictionary.
The Darkstar Mitts Pattern is available for $7.50 from Payhip, Loveknitting, and Ravelry.