Old Sweater New Mittens

Lately my crafting time has been spent cutting out squares of fabric from dresses the girls wore when they were little. I want to make quilts with them.

I know. The girls are now 14 and 11 years old. I have no explanation for what has taken me so long to start making these quilts. And yes, I've held onto the dresses they wore when they were little all this time. Better late than never. Right?

Cutting out squares of fabric can be tedious work. Very tedious work. BORING.

Hence the reason I decided to work on something else yesterday. I needed a project I could start and finish in a couple of hours. I needed the satisfaction of a completed craft! 

Hmmm. That may be the explanation as to why I waited so long to start the quilt project. While I enjoy a crafty project, my crafting time is usually limited. In my opinion, the best kind of craft project is a quickly completed craft project. Can I get an amen?

I definitely needed the morale boost of a finished project!

I took this comfy, old sweater that no longer fits either of the girls, and decided to make some comfy mittens. I followed a tutorial from Martha Stewart to make my mittens. 

I decided to use this sweater because it had perfect waist band for mitten cuffs. Mittens must have a good cuff!

I traced a pattern that would be 1/2 inch larger than my hand to allow space for a double seem.

Then I turned my sweater inside out and cut through both layers of the sweater for each mitten. I had a total of 4 mitten pieces.

I cut the sweater inside out to save myself the step of putting right sides together. Inside out sweater = right sides together.

After removing the pattern piece, I pinned my mitten layers together and stitched them leaving a 1/2 inch seem allowance. I then went back and stitched a second seem to prevent unraveling, per Martha's instruction!

After all the seems were sewn, I turned my mittens right side out and tried them on!

They're so cute! The girls each want a pair too. I'm going to have to find some more comfy, old sweaters!

I'm so excited about my new mittens! Yay! A project done! And what perfect timing. It's going to be in the upper 70s this weekend. -pffft-

Do you struggle through craft projects that take a long time to complete? Or am I the only one?

Christine