These ribbed wrist warmers are easy to knit and a good project to make if you are new to knitting in the round on a circular needle.
Skills needed for knitting the Easy ribbed wrist warmers:
- Cast on stitches and join for knitting in the round
- Knit in the round with a circular needle
- Knit and purl stitches
- Bind off in pattern and weave in your threads
How to knit the Easy ribbed wrist warmers
Materials needed:
- Needles: a circular needle in size US 2.5 / 3mm, a cable long enough for knitting with the magic loop technique is preferable for this project.
- Yarn: I used 25 grams of Drops Merino Extra Fine number 25 (pink). You can find it on Amazon, or swap it for another yarn in weight 3 light / DK. I should choose some kind of merino, another type of wool, or maybe an acrylic yarn for this project because the yarn needs a little stretch for this pattern to work. Avoid unelastic fibers like cotton, linen, and bamboo for this.
- Gauge: 4 of the pattern equals approx 1.6 inches or 4 cm unstretched. 31 rows = 4 inches or 10 cm.
- Finished size: Lenght 4 inches / 10,5 cm and width approx 5 cm. The pattern stretches a lot so the wrist warmers fit a wrist that’s 6–8 inches / 15–20 cm in circumference. Instructions for altering the size are included at the end of the post.
- Notions: A stitch marker or a piece of scrap yarn in a different color, scissors, and a wool needle.
Cast on: 40 stitches on your US 2,5 /3mm circular needle with your preferred cast on method. I used the long tail cast on over both needles to ensure that the edge would be able to stretch out enough. A stretchy cast on would be just as good.
Rounds 1–35: *p2, k2*, repeat *–* the whole round
Bind off in pattern, meaning knit the knits and purl the purls while doing the bind off, loosely. You could also use a stretchy bind off. Cut the yarn and weave in the ends.
If you need more help with binding off in pattern, I wrote this post a while ago!
How to knit bigger or smaller wrist warmers in ribbing
The pattern above describes how to make a pair of wrist warmer that suits my wrist that is 17 cm in circumference as well as my preference for the length.
But, you may knit for a larger or smaller wrist than mine, or maybe you want to make your wrist warmer longer or shorter. No problem, this is how to do it!
How to adjust the width/circumference
To make a wider or narrower you need to adjust the number of stitches at the cast on. You have to change the stitch count in groups by four to make the ribb pattern fit. Because the pattern repeat is 4 stitches wide (p2, k2).
To make a narrower wrist warmer: Subtract 4 or 8 stitches from the 40 cast on stitches suggested in the pattern. Leaving you with 36 (40-4) or 32 (40-8)
To make a wider wrist warmer: Add 4, 8, 12, or as many stitches as you need to the 40 cast on stitches stated in the pattern. 44, 48, 52, etc.
How to adjust the length of the wrist warmer
The Easy ribbed wrist warmers pattern only has one pattern row, which means that you can make it as many (or few) rounds as you like too. This makes it super easy to adjust the length of the wrist warmers! You can actually try them on during the process and just stop when you’re happy with the length.
Or, if you want to make sure to maximize the length you can get out of your beautiful yarn, you can divide the yarn in half and knit one wrist warmer from each half 🙂
To make a shorter wrist warmer: Knit fewer rounds before you bind off.
To make a longer wrist warmer: Knit more rounds before binding off.
