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If you’ve ever browsed Pinterest for new knitting 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):

• 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)

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!