Let’s hear it for thumbs! Thumbs are meaty and important equipment. One thumb is the counterpart to four fingers: It can work with one finger to snap, or with all four fingers to hang on for dear life. It can swing around in a big circle and flex forward and back at the top joint. The Fried Chicken Mitten hugs the thumb’s curves and moves without stressing the rest of the mitten.

This is an intermediate pattern knit in the round. Even if you’re a newer knitter, the pattern is free, so why not challenge yourself to learn something new? You can start with some inexpensive yarn to get the swing of it.

I strongly encourage you to put your personal touch on these mittens. Modify them to include cables, stripes, duplicate stitch, embroidery, or bind off at the knuckles for fingerless mitts. Change the cuff altogether to your own liking. Do it!

A note about length/fit:
In my experience all mittens shrink a little in length. Now, I should say that I am really hard on mittens; I get them wet playing in the snow and then wrap them around heated handles of a snowmobile, and I dry them by a piping hot woodstove. This pattern is written to compensate for shrinkage by starting the decreases at the end of the longest finger. But if your plan is to wear these mittens to the bus stop and simply look smashing, then you can begin your decreases when you reach the last knuckle of the longest finger.