Crochet Texting Mitts (Review, Interview, Blog Tour and Giveaway!)

Crochet designer Andee Graves has a new Leisure Arts pattern booklet out called Texting Mitts. It’s filled eight different patterns for fingerless gloves that you can use to stay stylish, warm and still able to use all of the texting devices that require your fingers to be free. Today I’ll tell you a little more about the book, let Andee tell you about in her own words through an interview I did with her and then you can enter below to win your own copy as part of the blog tour for this new publication.

About Texting Mitts

Chunky Vs Mitt LA

Texting mitts, also known as fingerless gloves or fingerless mitts, are easy to crochet and offer the opportunity to add both function and style to your wardrobe. Andee Graves has designed eight different versions, all made with super fine weight yarn, and they’ve been compiled into her first complete crochet pattern book. The book, published by Leisure Arts, offers patterns for beginners as well as intermediate skill crocheters.

5 things I liked about this book when checking it out:

  1. There are patterns for crochet fingerless gloves of various lengths, which I like because I don’t always want long gloves but sometimes I do!
  2. There is the opportunity to practice several different stitch techniques such as foundation single crochet, post stitches, working in only one loop, cluster stitches and crossed stitches.
  3. There are patterns for both single color and multi-color fingerless mitts. I appreciate this because I don’t like changing colors so I usually work single color patterns myself but I love looking at the colorwork other people do in their crochet.
  4. Every pattern is for fingerless gloves. This is obvious from my description of the book but I am saying it because I always like pattern books that show different variations of the same product because it shows just how many different things you can do in crochet just by making small changes.
  5. On a practical note, the different sizes of gloves in each pattern are printed in different colors so it is really easy to follow the pattern to make the size of texting mitts that you want. The layout in general is easy to read and follow. I should add for some of you other there that there that prefer visual instructions that there aren’t symbol charts in this book. (It doesn’t bother me since I don’t really use them anyway but just wanted you to know!) However, you can find online tutorials as a bonus to this book, which will help if you’re a more visual pattern-follower.

Texting Mitts is available as an ebook and also as a print book. (In fact, you can win a printed copy from me today – details below!)

Interview with the Crochet Designer

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Q: You say in a post on your site:

“My first ever published design was a pair of fingerless mitts for Red Heart Yarn in October of 2009. So it is fitting that my first ever booklet would be fingerless mitts as well.”

Do you feel like you’ve come full circle in your crochet design because of this?

Andee Graves: It is sort of a full circle feeling. It is rather fun to have both firsts be in the same design category.

Q: What is it that you like about designing and crocheting fingerless mitts?

Andee Graves: My favorite thing about crocheting fingerless mitts or regular mittens is that they are such a quick project. That instant gratification aspect is very nice.

From a design standpoint they are a great project to experiment with shaping in stitch patterns and working in the round.

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Q: I can totally understand the instant gratification pleasure of a project like fingerless mitts. I love projects that I can sit down and do in one long sitting while watching a movie or even sitting at a coffee shop.  What are some of the most common problems that a beginner may run into when starting to crochet fingerless mitts for the first time?

Andee Graves: For mitts, like in my booklet, that are worked in the round it can be tricky for beginners to locate the first stitch of a round to join to. I generally teach beginners to use a stitch marker in their first stitch to make it easy to spot.

Q: That’s definitely smart. I’m an experienced crocheter and every once in awhile I’ll still catch myself joining the round wrong in a project.

All of the crochet patterns in this new book except for one are worked cuff-up. For those who don’t know, can you explain a little about the cuff up vs. cuff down design choice when it comes to your fingerless mitts?

Andee Graves: Cuff up refers to working the mitt starting with a foundation at the bottom cuff edge and continuing on to the top of the palm. Cuff down usually refers to working the mitt in 2 parts with a foundation located at the crease of the wrist. There is also fingers-down – which starts with a foundation at the top of the palm and works down to the bottom cuff edge.

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Q: The patterns in this book were all designed with super fine weight yarn. What are the pros and cons to using a lightweight yarn for fingerless mitts?

Andee Graves: The biggest pro to working with super fine weight yarn is the fabric created isn’t super bulky. Working with lightweight yarn also allows for more detailed shaping and stitch pattern options. Of course that leads to the one con, which is that it takes a lot more stitches to create the finished mitt.

Q:  You mention that there are physical health benefits to wearing fingerless mitts; can you explain what those are?

Andee Graves: The best prevention for any injuries from activities is to keep the muscles warm. That is why you see athletes of all types dressed in warm-up gear and stretching during competitions. Fingerless mitts allow for your hands to have normal grip function while the muscles of the hand and wrist stay warm.

There is also benefit to having gentle compression around the wrist to support the movement of the tendons that operate our fingers.

Q: Thanks Andee! That makes a lot of sense and gives us a practical reason to enjoy making the pattern in the book (although of course the cute style of them and fun of crocheting them are enough excuse for most of us!)

Learn more about Andee here.

Crochet Pattern Giveaway! (How to Enter)

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Leisure Arts generously offered a giveaway copy of this new book that you can enter to win now!

To enter you need to do one of the following things:

  • Pin any or all of the images in this post to Pinterest. Tag me (on Pinterest here) and also leave a comment on this post letting me know your Pinterest handle. Bonus entries: I will give you one extra entry for each picture on this post that you pin so pin them all to get the max entries!
  • Share this post on Facebook. Tag me (on Facebook here) and Andee (on Facebook) then leave a comment on this post letting me know your Facebook handle.
  • Share this post on Twitter. Tag @crochetblogger and @mamas2hands. Leave a comment on this post telling me your Twitter handle.

This giveaway is open to people with a U.S. address (sorry, shipping costs are getting so high these days!) Entries will be accepted through Thursday, February 14th at midnight PST. The winner, selected randomly, will be announced on the blog this weekend.

Crochet Book Blog Tour

Texting Mitts is on its blog tour right now. This post that you’re reading is the second stop on the tour.

The other stops on the tour are:

You can follow all of the stops here on Andee’s blog.

All photos courtesy of Leisure Arts Publishing

Kathryn

San Francisco based and crochet-obsessed writer, dreamer and creative spirit!

6 thoughts on “Crochet Texting Mitts (Review, Interview, Blog Tour and Giveaway!)”

  1. 1. I Pinned a total of 6 pics from this post on Pinterest , tagged @Crochet Concupiscence in each comment, and my handle is n0rthernlitegrl
    2. I shared this post on FB, however, FB would not allow me to tag you or Andee. Handle is n0rthernlitegurl
    3. I tweeted the post and tagged @crochetblogger and @mamas2hands; my twitter handle is @n0rthernlitegurl
     
    Do I get bonus points for not reading the rules correctly and thinking I had to do all 3 to enter? :-)

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