Folk School

A Striped Twined Mitten

Day two and after: turn your gauge into a cast-on, knit the hand in stripes, grow the thumb gusset and set it aside, decrease to the classic Swedish point, knit the thumb, and finish with braided ties, washing, and an optional light fulling. Numbers for two sizes at 37 stitches per 10 cm.

  • 4 min
  • 8 steps
  • 2 questions
  • Lesson 150 of 204

In this lesson

  1. The numbers
  2. The cuff
  3. The stripes
  4. The thumb gusset
  5. The hand and the top
  6. The thumb
  7. Finishing
  8. Try it

The numbers

Measure around your hand at the knuckles. Twined fabric has very little stretch 1, so knit to about that measurement with little ease.

A Swedish twined mitten pattern gets 37 stitches per 10 cm on 2.5 mm needles, for hands about 18 or 20 cm around 2. That’s 3.7 stitches per centimeter, so (this is arithmetic, not a published pattern):

Size Hand Cast on Around Gusset Thumb
Small 18 cm 68 sts 18.4 cm 23 sts 26 sts
Large 20 cm 76 sts 20.5 cm 25 sts 28 sts

The cast-on is the hand measurement times 3.7, rounded to a multiple of 4 so the top decreases come out even. If your swatch from lesson 2 gives a different gauge, do the same arithmetic with your own number.

Left, a mitten outline: a cuff of red chain-path diamonds over braided cast-on tails, a hand in red and white horizontal stripes, a thumb on the right side, and a pointed top. Numbered parts: 1 cuff of crook rounds and a chain path; 2 hand in stripes; 3 gusset increased two stitches every third round, then put on waste yarn; 4 top decreased four stitches every round to a point; 5 thumb from the waste-yarn stitches plus three. Right, a table at 37 stitches per 10 cm: small, 18 cm hand, cast on 68 stitches, 18.4 cm around, gusset 23 stitches, thumb 26; large, 20 cm hand, 76 stitches, 20.5 cm, gusset 25, thumb 28. Notes: measure around the hand at the knuckles; multiply by 3.7 and round to a multiple of 4; twined knitting hardly stretches, so little ease; gusset about a third of the hand stitches; start the top at the tip of the little finger and decrease two at each side every round, closing the last 8 to 12; knit a swatch and redo the arithmetic with your own gauge. Gauge from a Swedish pattern on 2.5 mm needles; under about 90 grams of yarn for a pair.
The mitten from your gauge. These numbers are worked out here, not North House's pattern. Credit: StudyCorner diagram; gauge from the Liv pattern · CC BY 4.0 · Source

Quick check

At 37 stitches per 10 cm, about how many stitches for a 20 cm hand?

Quick check

Why knit a twined mitten with little ease?

The cuff

Cast on with the two-color cast-on and work the cuff from lesson 2: a round of twined purl, plain rounds, a chain path, plain rounds, and a second chain path, about 5 to 6 cm in all. The Dalarna work mittens in lesson 1 have simple purl-stitch cuffs 3; anything from plain to a full patterned band is traditional.

The stripes

North House’s class mittens are striped 4. With two colors you have choices:

  • Horizontal stripes: knit a few rounds with both strands of one color, then a few with both of the other.
  • Vertical stripes: use one strand of each color and knit each stitch in the color that comes up; on an even number of stitches, the colors stack into columns 5.
  • Checks: with one strand of each color, knit each stitch into the opposite color from the round below 5.

To change colors, start the new strand and twine in its tail for a few stitches.

The thumb gusset

The class works the gusset on day two 4. About 1 cm above the cuff, mark one stitch at the side of the palm for the thumb. Every third round, increase one stitch at each side of the gusset, inside the markers, until it has about a third of the hand stitches, 23 for the small size or 25 for the large. Then slip the gusset stitches onto waste yarn, cast on 1 stitch over the gap to keep the hand’s count, and carry on in the round.

The hand and the top

Knit straight until the mitten reaches the tip of your little finger. Then decrease to the classic pointed top, like the gray mittens in lesson 1 3: place a marker at each side, and every round knit two together just before each marker and slip-slip-knit just after it, 4 decreases a round. When 8 to 12 stitches remain, break both strands, thread them through the stitches, and pull tight.

The thumb

Put the waste-yarn stitches back on needles, pick up 3 stitches across the gap, and knit in the round: 26 or 28 stitches. Knit until the thumb reaches the middle of your thumbnail, then decrease 4 a round, two each side, and close the top as before.

Finishing

  • Braid the tails left from the cast-on into a short tie, a common decorative finish on twined mittens 6, or make a cord to join the pair like the gray Dalarna mittens 3.
  • Weave in the ends on the wrong side, along the ridges.
  • Wash gently in lukewarm water and dry flat.
  • Fulling, washing with more agitation to felt the surface slightly, was a common finish for twined pieces 1. Go a little at a time; you can’t undo it.

In Norway and Värmland, twined mittens were worn wrong side out, ridges showing 7; try yours both ways.

Try it

Before starting the second mitten, write down every count from the first: rounds of cuff, the round where the gusset started, rounds to the top. Twined knitting is slow, and the second of a pair is where those notes pay for themselves.

Lesson complete

Nice work.

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Sources for this lesson
  1. 1
    Josefin Waltin. Twist Analysis: Twined Knitting. Spin Off. 2019. verifiedIn Dalarna the technique was simply 'knitting'; one-end knitting was called enkelstickning until it took over. Norwegian name tveband. The 1974 Dalarna mitten: two yarns twisted between each stitch on the wrong side; yarn spun S and plied Z; dated to the 1680s by soil layers, then by carbon-14 in 2017 to the mid-1500s to early 1600s. Wool often blended with winter rabbit fur; cotton and flax also used. The fabric is strong, firm, not bulky, with very little elasticity, more like weaving; fulling was a common finish; needles smaller than usual. Z-plied yarn untwists near the work and overtwists toward the ball; S-plied yarn kinks up much sooner. Use fibers at least 2 inches long since the yarn untwists in knitting.
  2. 2
    Marias garn. Liv (twined mitten pattern). Ravelry. 2023. verifiedA Swedish twined mitten with a two-color crook-stitch cuff and a 'life line' thumb gusset. Gauge 37 stitches = 4 in (10 cm) in twined knitting on 2.5 mm needles; hand circumference about 18 (20) cm. Yarn: Z-plied 5/2 (250 m/100 g) from Wålstedts, or 6/2 (300 m/100 g) from Kampes or Ullcentrum, in three colors: under 70 g, 15 g, and 5 g. Pattern in Swedish, 60 SEK.
  3. 3
    Vante (DM 17457), a pair of twined work mittens. Dalarnas museum, via DigitaltMuseum. verifiedA pair of thumb mittens twined in gray 4-ply Swedish wool; the cuffs knitted with purl stitches; straight thumb; a cord of the same yarn. CC BY.
  4. 4
    Tvåändsstickning - Mittens in Swedish "Twined" Knitting. North House Folk School. 2024. verifiedTwo-day class with Lily Bell (July 2024). Twined knitting, unique to Sweden and parts of Norway, uses two ends of yarn alternately for every other stitch; used mainly for mittens and socks and for knitted sleeves of sewn bodices, favored for strength and warmth in Sweden's logging forests; on Sweden's list of living cultural heritage under the UNESCO convention. Students begin a pair of striped mittens in Z-spun yarn from Wålstedts Spinneri: day one cast-on and technique, day two the thumb gusset. Materials fee $35-45 for yarn, pattern, and optional needles; a Swedish pattern book $16. Four or five double-pointed needles, US 1.5 / 2.5 mm. For knitters with some experience, age 16 and up.
  5. 5
    Joan Goldstein. What is Twined Knitting?. Spin Off. 2025. verifiedExcess twist builds up as you work; wind both yarns onto one center-pull ball, secure the strands to the ball with a slipknot, and let the ball hang to untwist. Three-strand alternating cast-on: slipknot of the contrast color 4 in from its end (not counted), slipknot of the main color 2 yd from its end; main-color tail over the left thumb as for long-tail; knit through the thumb loop with contrast taken under main, then main under contrast, alternating; looks like a long-tail cast-on in alternating colors. A practice cuff: twined purl braids, sections with two colors knitted as they appear (vertical stripes) or into the opposite color (checkerboard). Written for S-plied yarns; with Z-plied yarns, twine in the opposite direction.
  6. 6
    Twined knitting. Wikipedia. verifiedCalled tvåändsstickning, tvebandsstrikking, tvebinding. Forest regions of Värmland, Dalarna, Härjedalen, Jämtland, Hälsingland, and eastern Norway. Over 95 percent of knitted objects from Dalarna in the Nordic Museum and local museums are twined. Norwegian mittens worn inside out. Bornvanten, 24 by 11 cm, about 5.5 stitches per cm, radiocarbon-dated 1490-1645. Method: centre-pull ball, half hitches so the ball can hang and untwist; needles about 0.5 mm smaller than usual, metal preferred, five double-pointed needles; cast-on with the two strands plus a third, tails often braided. English style: to knit, both strands in back, separated by index and middle finger, knit with the back strand brought over the front strand; to purl, both in front, purl with the back strand brought under the front. Deep stitch: front strand runs in front while knitting with the back strand. Crook stitch: purl, knit with the purl strand left in front, purl; a row of them is a crook row; two crook rows shifted by one stitch make a chain path; 'O' stitch. (Its yarn-twist paragraph reverses the usual Z-plied terminology; not relied on.)
  7. 7
    Tvåändsstickning. Wikipedia (Swedish). verifiedAn old, exclusively Nordic technique: two strands used alternately for every other stitch and twisted around each other. Known from the forest regions of central Sweden and eastern Norway; oldest finds from the 1600s. The work is held in the left hand and the yarn in the right; slower than ordinary knitting because the yarn is laid around the needle, but denser and warmer. Relief from purl stitches, deep stitches, crook stitches, and crook rounds. In Dalarna parish costumes' knitted parts were twined; sleeves knitted and sewn on in Västerdalarna. In Norway and Värmland mittens and socks were worn wrong side out. Further reading: Dandanell and Danielsson 1984; Jönsson 2008; Kahnlund 2019; Ling 2002.

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