This post originally posted over on Oliver + S. Last year after Liesl saw the sweater mittens I made for the kids during Kids Clothes Week she asked me if I wouldn't mind writing up a little tutorial on how to make them for the Oliver + S blog! So, in honor of the fact that we are finally experiencing some winter here (hooray for blizzards!) I thought this was the perfect time to repost this tutorial!
The calendar may say that Spring is only a month away, but for many, frigid temps and snow are still quite prevalent! We are some of those folks. Both of my kids were in desperate need of some new mittens to keep the cold and wind out and their hands nice and toasty warm, so a couple of weeks ago I sewed them each up a pair of new mittens using the Oliver + S mitten pattern from "Little things to Sew".
While I love this pattern, I did make a few changes to them to make them suit our needs a little bit better.
The mittens were made using upcyled sweaters and are lined with fleece. They have an added cuff made from cotton ribbing. I love the little changes and so did Liesl so she asked if I would share how I made them here.
First, the mittens I made initially, the ones in the picture above, were only partially lined with fleece, only on the top part. Since the bottom/underside of the mittens were made with a thick felted wool sweater I worried that lining the mittens would make them too bulky and difficult to grasp with. If you are using a more light weight sweater as I did here, I would recommend lining all pieces with fleece as I did here.
Begin by cutting out all three of the pattern pieces twice. Once using your sweater and once out of fleece.
I used micro fleece to line my mittens. I has a good deal of stretch to it, plus it is thin, but warm as well. Cut pieces with the greatest amount of stretch going across the hand.
Once your fleece and sweater pieces have been cut, match the fleece (lining) pieces to each sweater (outer) pieces with wrong sides together and baste with a 1/8" seam. Once your lining has been basted to your outer pieces, sew together per instructions skipping the part with the elastic and ribbon.
To finish the mittens, fold a piece of cotton ribbing (with good stretch recovery) and cut it to be 4" tall by the width of the mitten bottom x2.
Fold ribbing right sides together and sew the short sides together with 5/8" seam. Next fold the cuff in half widthwise with right sides facing out, place the cuff over the end of the mitten so that all of the raw edges are even, pin the seam of the cuff at one of the mitten seams and the fold of the cuff at the other mitten seam.
Sew the cuff onto the mitten with a 1/4" seam allowance, stretching the ribbing slightly as you go. Repeat with the second mitten and you are done!
A new pair of warm, lined mittens...
with a cuff to tuck up underneath coat sleeves!
*A note: I actually made these mittens using the large size and sewed them up for myself.
I love the way they turned out and think that they fit fine, except that I would lengthen the mitten part about an inch the next time. Just in case you want to make yourself a pair!
Enjoy, and stay warm!
