On my first solo dive, I saw an octopus snoozing in a crevice deep in a coral reef. Far from the fearful creatures featured in many a horror story, Octopi are intelligent and creative animals capable of fantastic color changes. What better design to feature on a color work mitten!

Octopus is worked entirely from charts using a little less than one skein each of two colors of super soft Rosy Green Cheeky Merino Joy yarn. Charts are provided for the cuff and right/left hands and thumbs. Note that some of the octopus’ arms wrap around the sides of the mitten and onto the palm design. This is intentional!

Octopus also has a Norwegian style thumb. Thumb increases are flanked on each side by a column of Contrast Color stitches. All thumb increases occur inside these two columns. Markers on either side of the thumb will help segregate these stitches from the rest of the designs.

If the size of this mitten is too small, it is not hard to make it larger and/or longer. All or part of the cuff chart can be repeated. To make the hand circumference larger, add plain stitches on either side of each of the side columns; adding four stitches will add about 0.5 inch (1.25 cm).

Enjoy!