Homemade Mittens from a non-Knitter

When Kayla was home over the weekend, we hit our favorite thrifty place.  It just so happens that a crafty friend of Kayla’s was there with a pair of BEAUTIFUL mittens.  She explained that she had made her mittens from a repurposed wool sweater.  Well, I quickly went to the sweater section and found this red sweater vest.

Kayla told me about a free pattern that she had seen online over at The Purl-Bee.  By combining their pattern and Kayla’s friends advice, this is what I did.

I put the wool vest in the wash in hot water and dried it so it shrunk.  I dug through my scraps and found black fleece for a lining.  The pattern is designed for medium hands….mine are large and I wanted to add a lining so I added about 3/8″ to the outside of the pattern making it larger. 

I cut out and sewed both the lining and the fleece.  (The Purl Bee has great pictorial instructions so I just followed them)  I put the fleece mitten on my hand with the wrong side out, then I put the sweater vest mitten on top with the wrong side in.  Now, I was at a stand still.  The Purl Bee suggested knitting the cuff….well I don’t knit….Kayla does, but she had already left….so I went to my second favorite thrift store and found a black sweater.  I cut the cuffs off.  I sewed the cuff to the outside of the mitten with the wrong sides together.  You will need to stretch the cuff to fit the glove when doing this.  Then I turned over 1/4″ of the lining and hand sewed it to the cuff, hiding all of the seams.

Here are my new mittens….

I LOVE them.  They are super warm and cozy.  The sweater I used to make the cuffs had extra long cuffs which is a feature I look for in mittens.  The little flowers look so cute.

So here’s the run down…
Sweater vest      $2.00
Fleece lining            .25  from previous thrift shopping
sweater for cuffs     .10  Yes, ten cents…it was a deal day!

Total…. $2.35  but the fun in making them was truly priceless!  All together with the hand sewing and all, the mittens only took about an hour and half to make.  I will definately be watching my local thrift stores for more wool sweaters….if you’re on my gift list, you just might be getting a pair next Christmas.