The Twelve Days of Christmas Crafts, Day 9: Easy Upcycled Felted Fingerless Gloves

I took my boys up to Rockefeller Center to have a gander at the tree today. Its fun to go into the city now and then and feel like tourists, asking strangers to take our pictures in front of landmark spots like this one. We also watched the ice skaters and visited the Lego store, where we marveled at the amazing things that can be sculpted from tiny plastic bricks.

Today was another pretty mild day for this time of year. If you look closely in this photo you can see I'm wearing a pair of those fingerless gloves which I like to wear when its not super cold. These were given to me by my mother in law for Christmas a couple of years ago. Tonight I sat at the kitchen table and took a stab at making another pair from the stash of felted wool sweaters I raided to make upcycled baby legwarmers a few weeks ago. Here's what I did.

I picked out a dark grey wool sweater with intact sleeves, and cut them both off to about 12" in length.

The cuff of the sweater will be the top of the glove. Next, I turned the sleeves inside out, and snipped a little incision into the seam of the sleeve, about three inches below the top edge of each one.

I put the glove on to make sure the incision was in the right spot, and to stretch it out a little bit before sewing on the thumb piece.

Next I picked out another sweater in a different color for the thumb fabric. I used the neck section of this sweater for the ribbing, so the top of the thumb pieces have a finished look. I cut two pieces measuring about three inches across and three inches long.

I pinned these together, right sides facing, and sewed them along the edge, backstitching all the way to make the seam nice and strong.

Next, I turned the thumb right side out. Then I pushed it through the hole in the glove til the edges of the glove and the thumb lined up, and also the seams of the glove and the thumb piece faced each other. (The glove piece is still turned inside out at this point.) With my finger through the thumb hole as a guide, I began sewing the two edges together using a whipstitch.

I repeated this with the thumb piece on the other glove. Then I turned them right side in, and decided I was finished.

And here's how they looked on my hands. With the shape my hands are in at the moment, I should probably not have been my own model. But you get the picture. Not bad for my first attempt, right? I think I'm going to try and crank out a couple more pairs as Christmas gifts for my sisters. I've got plenty of sleeves left to play with.