Make Quick Mittens
Hi! I’m Heather from Dollar Store Crafts, a daily blog devoted to making cool crafts with dollar store stuff. I’m so excited to be swapping holiday posts with Dot!
Do you love felted sweaters as much as I do? Felted (or technically, “fulled”) sweaters are made from animal hair-based yarn (like wool, alpaca or cashmere), and washed in hot water and dried in the dryer until they shrink up and the fibers are fused together (kind of like dreadlocks on a micro scale). Once a wool sweater is felted, the fabric can be cut and it won’t fray. It’s an amazing material for crafting. You can use a felted sweater as the base for all kinds of cozy winter goodies, like these cute mittens.
You can find wool sweaters at the thrift store. Just make sure the tag says it is mostly or 100% animal fiber. Need to know more about the process of felting? Check out this post by Diane Gilleland at Craft Stylish about felting your sweaters.
Project Materials:
- Felted sweater
- Scissors
- Sewing stuff (sewing machine & thread)
- Paper and pen
To Make Mitten Template:
Trace your hand (or your child’s hand) on a piece of paper.
Add a seam allowance line about 1/2 inch around the outside of your traced area.
Place template on sweater and cut out two pieces for each hand.
Place pieces right sides together and sew around the edge. Be sure to reinforce the seam at the cuff of the mitten by backing your stitch up a bit.
Clip any excessive extra fabric (pay attention to the area near the thumb), and turn mitten right side out. Try on mitten to see if it works. If you need to, you can turn it back inside-out and adjust.
Smile because that was so simple and quick!
Visit me at Dollar Store Crafts for more great holiday ideas and tutorials!
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Do you have to use the sleeves or will any part work?
@christina You can use any part. I used the bottom of the body of the sweater.
I love the stripes! I’m going to be hunting the thrift stores now. Thanks for another great project, I’ll be linking.
Wonderful! thanks so much, I have been looking for something awesome and simple. One question, I think at least one of my kids would find the inside ithcy and the seam bothersome. Can you add a layer inside so it would cover the wool and the seam? maybe thermal or t-shirt cotton, and at which step would you add it?
Thanks again.
@lorrie Yes, you could do that! I would cut out pieces of lining, sew the lining to the cuff parts (wrong sides together & then flip inside out), and then sew around the outside as shown. OR you could sew around the outside w/out turning inside-out, and leave the exposed seams on the outside for a deconstructed look (and that should be super-cozy because there are no scratchy seams inside to chafe).
I don’t have time to type out instructions for making a no-exposed seam lined mitten right now, but it would also be pretty easy. Here’s a tutorial I wrote for making a lined purse – it would be the same technique as making the lining in the purse. http://croqzine.com/blog/?p=972
Thats great, thanks so much! I can’t wait to try this out, I have been holding on to some sweaters for a while to try something like this.
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