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.
wow! these are super cute! love those deals!
Even better than the deals was truly the fun making them. It’s great to make something I can use.
I have that same sweater vest in light blue, but I’m not ready to make mittens out of mine ’cause I’m still wearing it! Those are really cute.
Well don’t send your vest to Goodwill once you’re done with it….it would make CUTE mittens!
Love them! Great idea.
all I can say is WOW! I just love them, great idea, great job.
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