Quilt Mittens – Modern Quilts Interpreted as Mittens

Not Ready for a Quilt Coat? 

Have you been eyeing the quilt coat trend? If you’re like me, you kind of want to join in but you’re not sure you have the interest or capacity to tackle a full-blown coat. Or maybe you’d like warm-up round before diving into a full coat? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Quilt mittens are the perfect gateway project to quilted garments.

Perfect Handmade Gift for Friends and Family

These mittens are a cozy and quick make. They are the perfect gift as winter rolls in; great for your parents’ aging hands, your teenager headed back to college, your trendy friend living in snowy New York City, or your friend tending chickens in freezing rural Saskatchewan. Maybe you just want a pair of quilt mittens for yourself. Well, be prepared to make yourself a second pair when someone purloins the first pair!

Modern Quilts Interpreted as Mittens

I have been making mittens based on modern quilt patterns I have been crushing on but don’t have time to make in full. This way I get to have fun making a single block without adding another big project to my never-to-be-finished project pile. My first pair of quilt mittens was patterned after the Christmas Joy Quilt by Brittany of Lo & Behold Stitchery. The Christmas Joy Quilt caught my eye a few years ago for its simple beauty and classic, minimalist Christmas charm, so when I started looking for a quilt to make into mittens, I knew this would be my first.

After that first pair, I couldn’t wait to make more. I started mocking up possible quilt mittens in Adobe Illustrator. Some would be beautiful but much too complicated, like the Interwoven quilt by Lo & Behold Stitchery (middle bottom). Others are 100% on the docket. I just haven’t found time yet! Make sure to stop back by, as I will keep adding inspiration pictures to this post as I stitch up more quilt mittens.

Quilt mitten mockups:

1. Reflections Quilt by Suzy Quilts

2. Prince Quilt by Riane Elise

3. Maypole Quilt by Suzy Quilts

4. Guest Pillow by Riane Elise

5. Gathering Quilt by Riane Elise

6. Sola Quilt by Riane Elise

7. Stone + Bloom by me

8. Interwoven Quilt by Lo & Behold Stitchery

9. Grid Quilt by Riane Elise

Can you tell I crush on Riane Elise quilt patterns a lot?

Composing Your Quilt Mitten

If choosing a more traditional quilt block, you’ll want to ask yourself two questions:

• What size mitten am I making?

• Do I want the quilt block to go off the edges of the mitten?

Typically in graphic design, I am a big fan of full-bleed: images that go right to the edge of a page and designs that completely fill a shape with no border. However, when it comes to quilt mittens, it can be nice to have some breathing room in your composition that allows the quilt block to shine without its points being lost off the mitten edges.

Full-bleed Quilt Mittens

This first pair of Christmas Joy Quilt mittens that I made (below) the quilt block filled the whole mitten back and spilled over the edges.

Quilt Mittens with More Negative Space

This second pair (below), I shrunk the block a bit, inversed the colors, and added a border so that the foreground of the block would float on the mittens with the background of the block seamlessly blending to the color of the palms of the mittens. Both are nice, just different!

Sizing Your Quilt Block

For a large mitten, you will need a 12” x 12” quilt block. Medium: 11” x 11”. Small: 10” x 10”. However, if you want the whole quilt block to be visible on your mittens, consider sewing a quilt block that finishes at 9” x 9” or less. Then add a border to each side of the block to achieve the size block you need for your chosen size of mitten.

More Quilt Mitten Inspiration

After finishing my Christmas Joy Quilt mittens, I knew my next pair would be with my extra Shine Quilt block. I am still not finished with that whole quilt, but since I am using a combo of wool fabric and peppered cotton, I wanted to make sure the finished quilt would wash well. I took one of my blocks, sandwiched and quilted it, then threw it in the washer and dryer. What resulted was crinkly goodness! No issues with odd shrinking or felting. It also left me with a single crinkly Shine Quilt block: perfect for a quilt mitten!

Quilt Mitten Tutorial

If you’re ready to make your quilt mittens, pop over to my Quilt Mitten Tutorial on the Lo & Behold Stitchery blog. In that post, I detail how to incorporate your chosen quilt block into your mittens. Note that you will need to purchase my Adult Mitten Pattern to download the mitten pattern pieces and the instructions for constructing the non-quilt part of your mittens.

To check out other people’s quilt mittens, you can peruse #QuiltMittens and #LovelyEnoughMittens on Instagram.

Mitten Sewing Pattern – Cozy and Quick Handmade Gift

Sew a pair of warm, cozy mittens for you or for a gift.

Are you looking for a last-minute handmade gift for a friend or family member? Perhaps you would like to get ahead on Christmas gifts this year? You have come to the right place. Mittens are the perfect gift for anyone living in less than balmy climes: great for your parents’ aging hands, your teenager headed back to college, your trendy friend living in snowy New York City, or your friend tending chickens in freezing rural Saskatchewan. Warm and cozy with a simple silhouette, these mittens will look like a pair of bespoke mittens bought from an artisan market. Your giftee will be tickled and overjoyed.

Versatile mitten sewing pattern

Flexible to be sewn with new, scrap, or thrifted fabrics, this mitten pattern also includes alternates to accommodate preferences for finishing your mittens by hand or by machine.

Check out #LovelyEnoughMittens on Instagram to see examples of the beautiful and varied mittens people are making with the pattern.

Download your pattern and start making mittens for you and your loved ones today!

Materials for Sewing Mittens

(for a pair of mittens, any size)
– my downloadable mitten pattern
– mitten fabric, ⅓ yd (wool suggested, woven or knit)
– batting, ⅓ yd (optional, cotton or wool)
– lining, ⅓ yd (any soft woven or knit)
– elastic, 8” (¼” – ¾” wide)
– embroidery floss and needle, if you choose to attach elastic and finish wrist by hand

Skill Level – Advanced Beginner

Make Mittens from Old Sweaters

Have you wandered through a craft fair and coveted the cozy patchwork mittens made out of old sweaters, only to flip over the price tag and experience sticker shock? Well, here’s your chance to make your own pair for a fraction of the cost. Swing by your local thrift store or pull an old sweater out of your closet that you never wear and get to work making your very own sweater mittens.

Sizing your sweater mittens

The stretchiness of the sweater will provide a more pliable mitten. This might feel looser than a mitten of the same size made out of woven fabrics. Thus, even if you are using a bulky lining fabric, like minky or sherpa, you probably don’t need to size up like you would otherwise.

That said, if you use a layer of batting, this will remove all stretch again, so plan accordingly. Adding a layer of batting can be nice to keep your hands warmer, especially if the sweater has a loose weave that could let through wind and cold drafts.

Felt your sweater before making

Another option for looser weave sweaters is felting. The easiest way to go about this is to wash your wool sweater in hot water and dry on high. The felting process makes the wool fibers open up (when hot) and then close around each other as they cool, creating a denser fabric. Take note that this will shrink your sweater and could affect whether you have enough material for your mittens. Check out this post at Instructables for more on felting sweaters.

Perfect Scrap Buster

This mitten pattern is a perfect scrap buster. The pieces can quite easily be cut out of scrap fabric from another garment project. Leanne of The Bristol Stitchery whipped up a beautiful pair of mittens from her garment sewing scraps. She used waterproof fabric for the exterior and double-lined them to make an ultra-warm and weatherproof pair of mittens. You can check them out and ask her more questions on her Instagram.

Beautiful mittens made using scraps from other garment projects. Mittens and image by Leanne of The Bristol Stitchery.

Quilt Mittens

Have you been ogling those quilt coats that are all the rage? Well, take it a step at a time and start with some quilt mittens! My mitten pattern is easily adapted to using a quilt block for the back of the hands. Check out the mitten below made with a Christmas Joy Quilt block.

You can find more quilt mitten inspiration on my Quilt Mittens post, as well as a free tutorial for pattern hacking my mitten pattern to make quilt mittens on Lo & Behold Stitchery.

Tips for Sewing Your Mittens

As I have sewed mittens and experimented with the pattern, I have developed a few tips for success.

Tip 1: How to secure a long zigzag stitch in the seam allowance

Use a very wide and long zigzag stitch, as this helps to maintain the elasticity. However, using a very long zigzag stitch makes it tough to reverse at the start and the stop of the seam inside of the seam allowance. To remedy this, I came up with a little trick.

 In order to squeeze reversing a long zig-zag stitch into the seam allowance, start with your machine set to a very very short, wide stitch. Sew a handful of stitches in the seam allowance, reversing. Then lengthen the stitch to sew across the wrist, without cutting the thread. Finish the seam by shortening the stitch again and reversing in the seam allowance.

Tip 2: How to create a neat, secure seam at the base of the thumb

Start by pinning the thumb to the thumb-palm seam so that you don’t accidentally sew it into the edge seam. A binding clip or straight pin is perfect for this job. In order to more easily stitch these seams open, wait to trim the thumb seam until after you have attached the front of the mitten to the back. Lastly, make sure to reverse when crossing the junction at the base of the thumb. This is a seam that will take a lot of strain during wear and benefits from the extra reinforcement

Tip 3: How to keep the wrist elastic taut while hand sewing

Cut a piece of cardboard to slide inside the wrist to keep the wrist elastic taut while hand sewing. The size of the cardboard will depend on the size mitten you are making. It should be about 3–4” long. The widths are as follows: small–4”, medium–4½”, large–5 ⅛”. I also like to put a piece of painter’s tape on the edges to keep it from snagging the batting.

Slide the cardboard inside the wrist, and use a binding clip to secure the elastic at either end of the cardboard. Voila, you are ready to hand tack the elastic!

Tip 4: How to avoid fluffy linings poking through blanket stitches

I found that when blanket stitching my wrist edges that if my stitches were initiated from the inside of the mitten, then I would inevitably pull fluffy white Sherpa tufts through with each stitch. This left me with a finished edge that didn’t look as neat as I wanted. To avoid this, sew the blanket stitch by pushing needle from the outside of the mitten to the inside as this avoids pushing fuzzy lining through to the outside with each stitch.

In the picture below, the top mitten was stitched from the outside and the bottom mitten was stitched from the inside. I know it’s subtle, but the white fluff balls at the base of each blanket stitch are more visible in person.

Share Pictures of your Handmade Mittens

I would love to see what you make, so tag your pictures on Instagram with #LovelyEnoughMittens. Can’t wait to see the mittens you create! Stay warm and cozy.

Cozy Halloween Costumes You Can Wear Through the Winter

So, you want to make a halloween costume for a Little in your life, but you don’t want to spend hours making something they will wear once? I feel you. Enter the sweatshirt-hat combo: cute and cozy outfit to keep them warm on a brisk Halloween night that can be worn for months afterward!

Sweatshirt + hat = Cozy Halloween Costume

By whipping up a quick fuzzy sweatshirt (about 2.5 hours start to finish) and then pairing it with a coordinating animal hat (about 1.5 hours or less), you can successfully DIY a costume for the Little in your life—be it a niece, nephew, grandchild, or friend’s kid—that will keep them warm not only on Oct 31st but also through the coming months! This option is great for us in the North who have the chance of pretty inclement and chilly weather by the end of October. (Remember the two inches of snow in Michigan in 2019?) Plus, this feels like a great way to have your makes be slightly more sustainable and get you more bang for your buck.

Sweatshirt and Bonnet Patterns

For this project, I used two patterns:

• Sweatshirt by Oh Me Oh My Sewing Patterns

• Lamb Bonnet by Purl Soho (free) - Pattern add-on: download a template for fox ears.

These are not paid links or sponsorships. They are just patterns I have found great! Definitely poke around the other patterns on the Oh Me Oh My website, because there are some darling patterns over there.

Pattern Amendments for Other Animals

The free bonnet pattern by Purl Soho that I used has pattern pieces for lamb ears, but you can easily adjust the ears to make a bear, cat, puppy, fox, or other. I have included a downloadable template above for the fox ears I made, as well as a template for bear ears and cat ears. For ears that you want to stand up, like cats and foxes, I would suggest using some interfacing. Cut a piece of interfacing that is smaller than your fabric pieces and tuck this into the ear after you have sewn the edge and right-sided it out. Full disclosure: I used a pretty heavy interfacing and ended up breaking the needle on my serger since you’re sewing through two layers of interfacing + six layers of fabric once you fold the ear in half and tuck it into the bonnet seam. So, I guess go for heavy interfacing but not too heavy.

Download my Unofficial Pattern Add-on with templates for fox, cat, and bear ears.

Materials

Lamb Costume

• white sherpa fabric (mine was from Hobby Lobby)

• some scrap peach-colored quilting cotton (mine was from a previous Dear Stella collection)

Fox Costume

• redish sherpa fabric (mine was from Hobby Lobby)

• white sherpa fabric (mine was from Hobby Lobby)

• heavy-weight interfacing for the fox ears

I am not putting links here because I know offerings come and go from these big box stores. Joann also has comparable sherpa options if you’re wanting to use one of their many coupons, and I’ve heard good things about the sherpa fabric available from Stash Fabrics.

Add Some Pants

To round out the outfit, a pair of leggings or fuzzy matching pants could be perfect. Here are a couple more patterns to consider:

• Pocket Joggers (size 0–6yo) by Oh Me Oh My Sewing Patterns

• Hudson Pants (size 2T–10yo) by True Bias

  • Check out this fuzzy pair of Hudson pants on the True Bias instagram account for inspiration

Comment below if you have a favorite pattern for children’s leggings or pants!

Satisfying Weekend Project

I had so much fun stitching up these cozy and cute costumes; I hope you do too. I would love to see what you guys make, so tag me if you post to Instagram @LovelyandEnough or send me a picture via email or Instagram DM.

Follow along on Instagram: