February 2022 Class - Mittens at Home

One day in late February, I was looking for a project, and for some reason, I decided to give making mittens a try. I wanted to use old sweaters, and line the mittens with fleece – like the ones that Bernie Sanders went viral with.

I went to Goodwill and found a few sweaters and found a pattern online. A few hours later, I had an awesome pair of warm mittens!!! They were a bit wide, so I wanted to try again. Around that time, my brother stopped by, and he saw what I was doing. Soon after that – he gave me several old sweaters, and I had enough for dozens of mittens!

The mittens are quite easy. Each mitten is really made of two mittens – an outer one made of sweater material, and an inner one made of fleece, then you take a cuff off the sweater, sew the two together and voila… a mitten is born! There are mitten patterns that you can find online, and each part is made of three pieces. One for the back of the hand, one for the palm, and one for the finger area.

I ended up really liking this project! I made and gave away about 20 pairs of warm cozy mittens before the weather warmed up and I moved my attention onto other things.

Things I learned:

1. The mittens were a bit more comfortable if the palm of the outer layer was not made of sweater – but another piece of fleece.

2. The sweaters with small patterns work better than with big patterns. No pattern at all works too!

3. People really like getting mittens as a gift.