18th century fingerless mitts (upcycle)

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18th century mitts, embroidery, upcycle sweater

I wrote about this yesterday, but finally took pictures today. Here is the general process I used.

1. Cut arms/sleeves off of a wool sweater. Position sleeve on arm and if the sweater sleeve is too large, pin to a comfortable size. It is great if someone can help you pin, but my husband was off snow blowing the driveway or something so I did it with my left hand (and I’m right handed).

Pins indicate new size so it fits snugly around my arm

2. After it was pinned, I back stitched the new seam. I cut off the extra so I had only about a half inch to a quarter inch edge. Then, because I did not have enough sweater fabric to add a thumb piece, I left an opening so my thumb could go through. This took several measuring/eyeballing so I did not make it too big or small because I did not want to have to remake the thumb hole a million times. I’m glad I measured several times because it fits snugly without being too tight.

3. Next, I cut off the band from the wrist part. I whipped stitched all the raw edges down and did a double whip stitch (is that the proper term) so it gave a cross stitch X along the edge.

Whip stitch edge and you can see the thumb hole opening and new side seam

4. Finally, the best part arrived – embroidering! I realize technically, it should have been embroidered on flat fabric before anything was assembled; however, given the pre-made sweater sleeve, I struggled to embroider the design, but I think it turned out quite well!! I chose a bright berry pink color made from cochineal bugs in hand dyed silk. These are my “fancy to church mitts” so I figured a simple, yet eye catching color would be appropriate. I looked at several extant examples and the herringbone pattern seemed to be a common theme.

Pink embroidered design

The pin is marking the edge of the design area. I wanted it to be centered on the top of my hand when I wear them. So I put two pins on the edge of the design area. I have one more row to embroider and I have to add the leaf/flower bit at the end also.