Once you've made mitts, it's important not to lose them

Strings! Perhaps it was just that I was a careful child, but I've never actually had mittens with strings.

I get asked about them fairly often, in mitten knitting classes - how to make them, how long they should be - but I've never had more than vague suggestions to offer.

I recently completed a pair of mittens in one of my favourite yarns - Sweet Georgia's Superwash Chunky  - and I had some of the skein leftover.

So I decided to make a string for them.

I used 4.5mm/US 7 DPNs - several sizes smaller than I used to make the mittens - cast on 3 stitches and worked a length of i-cord....

The question was, of course, how long the string should be. After a bit of research - that is, chatting with knitting mothers - we determined that the optional length should be the height of the wearer. 

But a very sensible knitting mother also pointed out that the cords are likely to stretch. Knit them tight to keep the stretch to a minimum. If knitting mitts for someone still growing, a bit of stretch isn't a bad thing. For adults, however, you need to keep them as close to their intended length as possible. Use the cast-on and cast off tails of the i-cord to sew the to the inside of the mitten cuff, but leave the cast-off tail accessible so that when the cords stretch you can remove the mitt, shorten the cord and then reattach it.  (The very sensible Fiona Ellis suggests making knots in the cord to take up the slack, too.)

I have discovered that there are many benefits to having mitts on a string: you can't lose them, they make an excellent extra pocket - great for holding my TTC tokens and transfers - and perhaps best of all, they make people smile.