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If you’ve ever browsed Pinterest for mitten patterns, you’ve surely seen these sideways mittens. I always knew I would try this pattern one day. The abstract shape is interesting and the seaming looks ultra satisfying. But it took me months (maybe even a year) to find the motivation.

Why did it take so long for me to finally cast on? Because in my opinion, sideways knits are a pain in the neck. I like to try on my knits as they progress, which is easy when knitting top-down or bottom-up. But with this mitten pattern, you can’t try on the mittens until they are fully completed and seamed.

What if they don’t fit? What if I make a mistake while knitting? I don’t want to knit an entire mitten just to frog it later (spoiler alert, this happened). Regardless of these fears, I finally pulled together the motivation to try these sideways knit mittens.

My Attempt:

Now, a few different knitters have posted this pattern on their websites, and I want to give credit to each page and pattern I used. ItalianDishKnits and Gina-Michele.com were the main ones I saw on Pinterest, and I read their patterns to get a better understanding of how the proportions and construction worked. However, after digging a little deeper, I believe the original pattern came from Martha Stewart herself. I found the pattern was published in 2013 on both Ravelry and the Martha Stewart website.

There’s only one photo of these mittens on the Ravelry page, and I was a bit skeptical when I saw it. In my opinion it just doesn’t look like a Martha Stewart pattern. But don’t let this photo mislead you! Clicking through to the website will give you the true MS experience.

To be completely honest: I ended up knitting three mittens.

My Alterations:

It’s not that the first mitten was bad… It just didn’t quite fit my hand. I knew I had to try again and make some adjustments. Here’s the changes I made (women’s size):

If the above bullet points suit your needs, feel free to follow the adjusted pattern below. If you don’t care so much about these details, I highly recommend following the original pattern!

• I added a couple rows to the mitten width because I felt like the garter stitch ridges were stretching too much. I wanted to maintain the tight ridges, not stretch them out.
• I lengthened the overall project so it extends a little further down the wrist.
• Compared to some of the patterns listed above, I lengthened the thumb (my thumbs are relatively long and skinny)

Instructions for knitting sideways mittens

Cast on 35 Stitches

Row 1: knit
Row 2: k1, m1, knit to end (36 stitches)
Row 3: knit
Row 4: knit
Row 5: knit
Row 6: k1, k2tog, knit to end (35 stitches)
Row 7: knit
Row 8: k1, k2tog, knit to end (34 stitches)
Row 9: knit
Row 10: Bind off the first 11 stitches, then knit to the end of the row (23 stitches)
Row 11: knit all stitches, then cast on 17 more stitches at the end of the row (40 stitches)
Row 12: knit
Row 13: knit to last stitch, m1, k1 (41 stitches)
Row 14: knit
Row 15: knit to last stitch, m1, k1 (42 stitches)
Row 16: knit
Row 17: knit to last stitch, m1, k1 (43 stitches)
Rows 18-30: knit
Row 31: knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1 (42 stitches)
Row 32: knit
Row 33: knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1 (41 stitches)
Row 34: knit
Row 35: knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1 (40 stitches)
Row 36: knit
Row 37: knit
Row 38: Bind off the first 5 stitches, then knit to the end of the row (35 stitches)
Row 39: knit all stitches, then cast on 5 more stitches at the end of the row (40 stitches)
Row 40: knit
Row 41: knit
Row 42: k1, m1, knit to end (41 stitches)
Row 43: knit
Row 44: k1, m1, knit to end (42 stitches)
Row 45: knit
Row 46: k1, m1, knit to end (43 stitches)
Rows 47-54: knit
Row 55: Bind off the first 24 stitches, then knit to the end of the row (19 stitches)
Row 56: knit all stitches, then cast on 11 more stitches at the end of the row (30 stitches)
Row 57: knit
Row 58: knit
Row 59: k1, m1, knit to end (31 stitches)
Row 60: knit
Row 61: knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1 (30 stitches)
Row 62: knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1 (29 stitches)
Row 63: knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1 (28 stitches)
Row 64: knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1 (27 stitches)
Row 65: knit to last 3 stitches, k2tog, k1 (26 stitches)
Bind off all stitches

Finishing

For seaming, I recommend following along with the original pattern. I love that they used a contrasting yarn for the seams, and it makes the visual instructions super easy to follow.

Once finished seaming, weave in any loose ends and block to finish.