Mitten Love

A few years ago I posted about making mittens from old sweaters. What a crazy Pandora’s Box that was! I’ve been contacted by so many people looking for the directions and pattern after seeing it on Pinterest! Now, it’s not that I don’t enjoy ‘meeting’ fellow crafters, but I thought I’d give you all quick access to the directions and pattern pieces.

mitten pieces

Mittens from a Sweater

You will need:

• One sweater or other piece of wool (like an old blanket)
• About ½ yard quilt lining (batting)
• About ½ yard fleece or flannel
• Sewing machine or needle and thread

·         Wash and dry sweater in hot water/high heat.  Cut the arms off at the shoulder seams and split them so they lay flat.

·         Separate the front and back by cutting the side seams.

·         Lay the pattern pieces out on the sweater.  I made two copies of the pattern so I can move around the pieces and get different parts of the ribbing and patterns.  **Make sure when you do this you put the pattern pieces face up for one mitten, and then turn them over for the opposite hand!  You don’t want two of the same hand!

·         Cut out the sweater layer.

·         Repeat this for the quilt and fleece layers.

·         Match the sweater pieces with the quilt pieces.  (If your sweater has a “right side”, make sure the lining is on the wrong side.)

·         **With sweater sides together, line up the thumbs on the palm pieces using the straight edge and diamond.  Your layers should be: quilt, sweater, sweater, quilt.  Sew them together starting at the straight edge, around the thumb, and stop at the diamond.

·         When you open the pieces, you should be able to see the thumb opening.  With sweater sides together between the layers of quilt lining, sew the mitten top onto the palm.  You’ll need to be careful to keep the thumb out of the line of sewing.  I usually go along the edge of the presser foot, a fairly narrow seam.

·         Turn the mitten right side out.

·         Sew up the fleece lining by repeating the last three steps.

·         Slip the sewn fleece mitten inside the sweater/quilt piece, keeping the finished side where your hand is (wrong sides together).

·         Machine or hand-sew the two pieces together at the wrist opening.

Tips

You may want to use material that has no noticeable right/wrong side for your first try.  It will make it easier to fix if you need to!

You can fold the fleece and quilt batting in half before you cut out the pieces.  I do the sweater pieces one at a time to keep track of where the cuffs and any prints are.

I check frequently to make sure I’m sewing the appropriate hand…turn the pieces right/wrong side if you need to double check!  Easier to do this than rip and redo!

**You can also sew each layer separately and slip inside each other before sewing the wrist opening.  This will help if you have an older machine.  Fold in the rough edges to make smooth wrist seam.