Sewing

Sew Yummy: Mini Mitts Tutorial

October 11, 2012

My last guest of the Sew Yummy series is Sophie from Cirque Du Bebe.

Ever since I started sewing I have found Sophie’s boy clothes such an inspiration. She has an inimitable style with the perfect mix of cool and comfort. Then there’s the incredible clothes she sews for herself, some gorgeous every day separates and others that are fabulously extravagant. On top of all that she is hilarious. Today she brings us a tutorial for something every child would want in their play kitchen.

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When Laura first asked if I’d like to share something for her fabulous SEW YUMMY series there was an awkward moment there where I thought she was going to ask me to bake and I was going to have to come up with some complicated excuse. See, me and baking, its a rocky relationship. I can’t frost a cake elegantly to save myself. But lucky for you, Laura was talking about baking related sewing. Sewing and I…we get along just fine.

In lieu of all the felt food that’s been appearing around the house, and the fact that my little man has taken to playing ‘cheffing’, I thought we could really use some kidlet sized oven mitts. To handle all those hot felt pizzas. I was going to be lazy and buy a pattern for these, but then I just thought I’d give it a go and surprised myself by how quickly them came together. You could whip them up in under an hour and nothing beats a quick, cute project like this for replenishing sewing mojo. They’d make great gifts too!

The best part is you can make them any size. To make one mini-mitt you”ll need to start with a hand. Literally…

…and you’ll also need to gather…

  • fabric for the shell
  • fabric for the lining
  • some sort of batting / thick felt to pad them out
  • co-ordinating thread for your sewing machine
  • scissors, pins, paper + pens.

1) Start by tracing around your child’s hand to make the mitt shape. As you can see there are two lines above. The lighter line was the original shape and the darker outline is where I changed the shape slightly so that the side where the thumb is drops straight down instead of following the contours of the hand.

2) Once you’ve cut out your paper mitt, you can pin it to your fabric (doubled over) and cut around the outside including a 3/8″ seam allowance. When you get to cutting the ‘v’ between the thumb and the fingers, keep the seam allowance as far in you can and then cut straight into the point.

3) Cut out you batting (doubled over) without leaving a seam allowance.

4) You now have two opposite mitt pieces and two batting pieces.

5) Cut out your lining fabric in the same way as the outer fabric ( 3/8″ seam allowance)

6) Center one batting piece to the wrong side of one outer fabric piece and secure with a few random pins.

7) Now you’re going to make that cute quilted effect but sewing evenly spaced lines across the whole surface. You could go horizontal or diagonal or create diamonds. Whatever takes your face.  Repeat for the other batting and outer pieces and trim threads.

8) With right sides facing, pin outer fabric pieces (now with batting) together and sew with a 3/8″ seam.

9) Notch the curves like so.

10) Clip into the ‘v’ between thumb and fingers as close to the stitching as you can go. Repeat steps 8) to 10) with lining pieces.

11) To make the little fabric loop take a piece of co-ordinating fabric and cut to approx 8″ x 3″.

12) Fold one side into the middle length-ways.

13) Then the other.

14) Then fold in half again and stitch along the open side 1/8″ from edge. Depending on your fabric you might need to quickly press the fabric but I found press with my fingers kept the folds in place just fine.

15) Fold the loop in half and pin to the outside of the outer fabric, centering it over the side seam on the opposite side to the thumb. Have it stick up about 1/2″ above the top.

16) Turn the lining mitt inside out and place over the top of the outer mitt so that the right sides of the lining and the outer are facing each other. Line up the raw edges and pin in place.

17) Sew together with a 3/8 ” seam, leaving a gap of 1.5″ at some point around the mitt.

18) Pull the mitt back through the gap until it is the right way out and then stuff the lining up inside the outer mitt.

19) I don’t know about you but I can’t stand hand-stitching especially towards the end of a project when I just want to get it finished. So to close the gap, just tuck it neatly inside the mitt and sew around the entire perimeter of the top of the mitt 1/8″ from the edge.

And that’s it. Admire your mini-mitt!

Thanks for having me, back over to you Laura…

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That is so cute and who wouldn’t want an oven mitt covered in those hedgehogs?  I’m sure my boys would love their own mini mitts. Thanks for a the fantastic tutorial Sophie. I’ll be back tomorrow with a round-up of all the fantastic sewing and baking projects that have featured over the last three weeks.

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4 Comments

  • Reply Jane October 12, 2012 at 1:16 am

    very cute! that fabric is fantastic!

  • Reply Heidi Jo October 12, 2012 at 5:37 pm

    I’ve been wanting to make a mini mitt for ages. So glad I have a tutorial to go off of now. I’m sure I would have messed it up some way or another without one.

  • Reply kristin October 13, 2012 at 8:42 am

    WAY cute, soph. i really need to make a couple of these!!

  • Reply Sue {munchkin munchies} October 16, 2012 at 12:02 am

    Adorable and such darling fabric! So well made too:)

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