Sweeter, Sweater Mittens: A HoliDIY Project

Hopefully your holiday shopping/crafting is well underway by now, but if not, have no fear! Another quick craft project to the rescue!  This project repurposes a wool sweater and turns them into adorable fleece lined mittens.  I based this project off a pair of felted wool sweater I bought myself years ago at a craft fair.

Cast of Characters: 

- A wool sweater, preferably with a large hem along the waist

- Scrap paper

- Pencil

- Scissors

- Fabric Scissors

- 1/4 yd of fleece

- Pins

- Sewing Machine loaded with thread of the appropriate color

1)  Begin by felting your wool sweater in the washing machine.  The felting process tangles the wool threads making it tough and durable.  To do this, wash the sweater in hot soapy water, and then dry the sweater on high.  You want to use the largest sweaters you can find as the heat will significantly shrink your sweater.  This sweater is an XXL I found at the thrift store.

2) Trace your hand on a piece of scrap paper (or the Harry & Davids catalog like me.)  Move 2-5cm away from your hand tracing and cut the template out.  This step will make sure you don't make your mitten too tight when you sew it together.  

3) Turn your sweater inside out. Pin the hand template to the sweater starting above the hem and cut two sweater sides out and set aside.  The sweater's hem will end up being your mitten cuff.

4). Repeat step 3 with your fleece.  You will now have two wool and two fleece hand prints for a total of four.

5) Pin one fleece piece to the wrong side of the matching sweater cut out being careful to not pin the fleece to the will-be cuff.  Carefully sew the two together.  Repeat with the other fleece and sweater pieces.

6) Pin right sides together (fleece side out) and sew them together, including the cuffs this time.  You may need to take the foot off your sewing machine, depending on the thickness of your sweater/fleece combination.  I did not have to do this, but I went very slowly because my machine did not appreciate the fabric's thickness and skipped stitches in places.  Just be careful if you take the foot off! 

7) Flip the mittens inside out and voila! 

These mittens are durable and very warm.  Mine go everywhere with me during winter.  This project is fast, I made my set in just over an hour, including making a pattern/photographing as I went.  I have several sweaters leftover from this project that I'm going to make mittens from and put on Etsy if anyone is interested in a last minute Christmas gift! Have a good Monday!