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| My new P&P fingerless gloves... and my hubby's first photo credit! |
Y'see, I'd been thinking about making a pair of fingerless gloves. Maybe it's age, but these days, I suffer more frequently from cold hands and feet. (Or maybe it was the fact that we've just gone through the coldest February on record in forty years.) I've already made the slippers, so naturally, it was time to make some gloves.
And I just knew that the fabric remnants from the jacket would be more than enough to complete the project. The fabric was a super stretchy sport lycra, soft and comfortable but a bit of a bear to sew with, given its elasticity.
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| This is an amalgamation of two photos that I took of each arm.... not bad, huh? |
I'll describe how I went about making these, but you'll have to work out some of the specifics for yourself if they're not exactly what you want.
Of course, these gloves make a certain literary statement with my P&P fabric — the exact print used was the Pride & Prejudice Text (Bi-Directional Gradient) — but for anyone wanting to do this on a budget with thriftiness and recycling in mind, an old pair of leggings would do the trick.
Start with two rectangular pieces, approximately 8" (20cm) wide and anywhere from 10" to 12" (up to 30cm) in length (mine were 12"). As long as you're using a stretchy knit fabric, this should be a good starting point for the average wearer. By all means, if you have large hands/arms, start with a wider piece of fabric and confirm with a measuring tape.
I wanted the plain white border of the Spoonflower fabric to be used as a band that could be folded over (or under) at the top of the gloves, so I left 2" of it along the top, in order to create a 1" seam. (Unless you're going for the same functionality, you won't need that much length there.)
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| Worn with the top edge folded underneath... |
In these two pictures here, I have the top edge of the gloves folded under. Wearing them shortened this way allows for easier finger movement (such as for typing). With the ends totally extended (as in the first two photos above), you get more coverage but less range of motion (good for hand sewing and reading).
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| How you choose to wear these depends on what you want to do... |
Whether or not you want this versatility for your gloves will dictate how long the pieces of fabric need to be.
Fold the two pieces of fabric in half lengthwise and clip together (I used pins afterwards). Check to see if you can slip your hand/arm into the resulting tube. It shouldn't be too tight, but too loose is not ideal either.
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| Fold in half and pin, mark opening for thumb and trim top area as desired... |
Examine the photo above for an idea as to how you will sew up your gloves. You'll need a side seam with an opening for your thumb, a bottom seam, and a top seam. (My fabric doesn't fray, so the thumb openings didn't have to be finished.)
The top opening where your fingers will be should be narrower, so cut the fabric in about a 1/4" (6mm). Remember that I have a 2" band of fabric at the top because I wanted a 1" seam allowance there; you may not.
In this next photo, the top glove has been completely sewn up; the bottom glove shows how it looks prior to finishing the top and bottom seams. I used a 1/4" seam allowance for the side (leaving a gap between the "x"s for the thumb opening) and bottom seams.
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| Sew the side first... |
The distance from the top of the finished edge of the glove to the top of the thumb opening is 2" (5cm).
Therefore, if you only want a 1/2" (12mm) seam allowance for the top seam, you should have 2.5" of actual fabric above the thumb opening, before you start to sew.
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| Cut a notch into the seam allowance so that you can sew over it more easily... |
You may have noticed that I cut a notch in the side seam. That small cut allows the seam to stay open and lie flat so that the top seam can be folded over it neatly.
A note about the sewing. This project requires a stretchy fabric, so you should sew these gloves with a stretch stitch. In a lot of cases, however, a sewing machine's stretch stitch is extremely hard to unpick. My 1" top seam allowance went awry on my second glove and it was a painstaking process to rip out those stitches without ripping the fabric.
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| Worn with top band folded over the top... |
If you're not certain about being able to sew the circular seams evenly, I suggest you baste them first.
Then again, you might want to take a page out of this book and zigzag or serge your seams on the outside and have them be visible.
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| image courtesy of storiarts.com... |
These Pride & Prejudice writing gloves are sold by storiarts.com. I like the fact that they have an actual thumb section, but on the whole, I prefer my gloves to have a bit more coverage.
That, and the fact that mine didn't cost $26. ;-)
Further to the matter of costs, if you're not going to be thrifting the material for this project and do want a P&P themed pair of gloves, a fat quarter of my Spoonflower design in sport lycra (28" x 18", enough to make two pairs of gloves) costs $15.30 plus shipping. Of course, if you wait for one of their two for one fat quarter promos (normally July and November), the price point will be even better.
By the way, when I found these strips of fabric, I (re)discovered that the others had already been committed to a project that has been a work in progress for over two years! (Do you have unfinished projects from that long ago?) I finally completed it, so that'll also show up here in a few weeks.
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