Repurposed Fingerless Gloves

I mentioned last month that I had a few more felted wool sweater projects up my sleeve. Well, this project is right off the sleeve. Fingerless gloves made from the sleeves of purposely (and accidentally) felted sweaters.

I made the pair above for my mom, who works in a cold office but still needs use of her fingers. She has knit several pairs of fingerless gloves as gifts, and even though she can knit a pair in a weekend, I am proud to say the fingerless gloves I made for her took me 30 minutes, tops.

Simply trace a pattern using the intended recipient's hand, allowing a little extra room around the edges for comfort. Turn the sleeve of the sweater you are using inside out, place the pattern above the cuff (if the sleeve does not have a cuff, determine the size of cuff desired and place the pattern above the intended cuff). Trace the pattern in chalk and sew along the chalk line between the fingers and thumb.

Cut the top of the thumb at the chalk line,

and the space between the fingers and the thumb.

Turn the gloves inside out. I used a rather tight sleeve for this pair of gloves, hence the bunching between the fingers and thumb. To reduce the bunching and create a more fluid and flexible seam, place the thumb at a greater angle to the body of the glove.

If desired, crochet a decorative edge around the top. I simply slip-stitched around this pair for Avery using crochet yarn and a small crochet hook.

I also made a pair for the little boy next door (modeled below by Aidan) without any decorative stitching. His poor little hands get cold when digging in the dirt, but he still needs his fingers for whatever it is boys do with their fingers - pick up worms, pick their noses, etc.

And that's it! A fast, easy and functional use of felted sweaters; speaking of which, sniff, sniff, I accidently shrunk two of my favorite sweaters in my haste to catch up on laundry this weekend. So I promptly ran to the thrift store and found three more.

In other news, I finally created a three column template that I am happy with. Third time is a charm I suppose. And just in case you were wondering about the picture in my new banner, we are currently on puddle patrol around the yard, trying to eliminate breeding grounds for mosquitos before they really get busy, and this was a puddle in the bottom of our red wagon.

The Noticing Project has me looking in unusual places for unexpected images.