In the winter, hands get cold, especially if one is trying to conserve energy and money by keeping the house cool. Unfortunately, cold hands make it hard to do many things from sewing, to writing, to typing; cold stiff hands make work difficult. However, it is not necessary to have cold hands. Fingerless gloves or hand-warmers can make all the difference. You can sew fingerless gloves out of fleece or you can refashion an old sweater to keep your hands warm.
Fleece Fingerless Gloves
The wonderful thing about this fleece Fingerless Hand-Warmer pattern is that it has a pocket for you to put toasty charcoal hand-warmers in. As a result, not only do you have gloves on to keep your hands warm but you also have the added benefit of little heat pads.
Remake Sweater Sleeves in Gloves by Sewing
- You can also make fingerless gloves from the sleeves of an old sweater.
- Cut the sleeves off several inches above the elbow.
- With the sleeve inside out try one of the sleeves on your weak hand. Pull it up so that the wrist cuff sits across the base of your fingers and your thumb is still tucked inside the sleeve. (Make sure the seam is on the inside of the arm just like it would be if you were still wearing the sweater). Note: If you want you can fold the cuff of the sweater back and sew it down.
- Use straight pins to fit the sleeve to your arm and hand. It is important to make sure it fits on your hand (you can leave the sleeves slouchy if you prefer).
- Carefully remove your arm.
- Set your sewing machine to the zigzag stitch with the stitch length at minimum and the stitch width at maximum. Sew a new seam for your glove. Sew a second seam next to the preceding seam for strength if you wish.
- Try the glove on again. Make necessary adjustments. Cut off the excess fabric.
- Mark where the thumbholes need to be. Cut the thumbhole out.
- Using the same zigzag setting, sew around the thumbhole but make sure to overlap the cut edge. The best way to do this is to make sure that you run the cut edge directly down the middle between the two feed dogs on your machine. This will allow the zigzag stitch to encase the cut edge and prevent it from fraying.
- Fold over the top of your glove, fold it over again to make an cuff that encloses the raw edges. Sew the cuff down.
- If you make a slouchy glove, it might be beneficial to run ribbon through the glove around the wrists so that you can draw it tight and tie with a bow for better fit.
Fulled Wool Gloves – No Sewing or Knitting or Crocheting
- Full a wool sweater. (Fulling is a technique that involves using hot or boiling water to shrink wool fabrics). Learn more about fulling or felting wool at Woolcrafting.
- Cut the sleeves off at the length you want for your gloves.
- Pull the ‘glove’ on so that the wrist cuff sits across the base of your fingers and your thumb is still tucked inside the sleeve. (Make sure the seam is on the inside of the arm just like it would be if you were still wearing the sweater).
- Mark your thumbholes. Take off the glove and cut out thumbholes. Because the wool is felted or fulled it will not fray and doesn’t not need to be hemmed or edged in any way.
Melissa Howard - I am a stay-at-home Mom. My college education was in English and History and my last job was as a Technical Writer. Now that I ...
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