motorharp | Entries tagged with gloves

I had a sweater that I had sewed to my size from a thrift store sweater, and it never really did it for me.

Light aqua cowl neck sweater cut and sewn from oversize v-neck sweater

Before and after

Enter my desire for a beret! And a felted sweater would be perfect material, right? I washed and dried it on the hottest settings, and I think it shrank about 25%, and became a delightfully dense and cushy fabric.

And enter my remembering after making the beret that they never fit right, even though I make them to size.

And also enter the leftover sleeves after making the beret. There was enough for a cozy pair of gloves!

I went on a vintage glove-making spree a few years ago (until I realized I can't find vintage-quality glove material), so had an almost perfect pattern.

I tweaked the hand so the fingers are straight (the gloves I traced had been worn and were consequently stretched). I also prefer the shaped fourchettes instead of straight. If you look at where fingers join hands, you may notice the join is higher on the palm side than the back-of-the-hand side. And so the finger cuts on the pattern end slightly higher on the palm side. Hence the V-shaped fourchettes.

Gloves cut and sewn from light aqua felted sweater right side out

Gloves cut and sewn from light aqua felted sweater inside out

Serging was maybe not the best option for finishing the seams on the inside, but it was the quickest. I had a dickens of a time shaping the ends of the fingers. Sergers are not meant to go around tiny curves.

The thumbs always surprise me when they pop right in. Both the thumb and the opening are confusing shapes.

A hand wearing a glove cut and sewn from light aqua felted sweater back side up

A hand wearing glove cut and sewn from light aqua felted sweater palm side up

They are indeed snuggly and very warm, and kept my hands that way even in the downpour yesterday.

If you are interested in making your own gloves, https://glove.org/ is a good place to start.

Top: 1st glove
Bottom: 2nd glove

So these aren't as polished-looking as I'd like, but much better than the machine sewn gloves. By far.

Original gloves + 1/2"

I think that has to do mostly with having a better pattern. I took apart some vintage gloves that I loved and wore to death and made a pattern. That way, the pattern already had all my finger... quirks molded in. Except for the quirk that my palms are a size medium and my fingers are an extra 1/2 inch longer. Or, as I found out after making them, my thumbs and pinkies are only 1/2" longer, my other fingers are 5/8" longer. Geez.

I also left the fourchettes in a "V" shape because I didn't think the grain of the stretchy fabric would make that much of a difference (It would if it was really stripey, but the bias in between the fingers might also look pretty cool.) The original fourchettes were stitched into a V after construction, which in hindsight, would make them easier to stitch.

Top: Sulky Cotton "Petite"
Middle: DMC Perle Cotton No 8
Bottom: Original (cotton?) thread

I managed to salvage a goodly length of the original thread used to sew the gloves. It appeared to be either cotton or silk, although since "100% cotton" was written/stamped on the inside of the gloves, I'm assuming it's cotton. And no, I'm not going to light anything on fire, thank you. (Which reminds me, I need to check and make sure my fire extinguisher is still pressurized.) The original gloves were sewn with a double length of thread.

At the fabric store, I chose two threads that appeared to have the same kind of twist as the original, and one to match and one lighter weight. I sewed the left-hand glove with the perle cotton, which was a bit too much of a pull to get it through the thinner fabric. The right-hand glove got the Sulky Cotton treatment, and it was much easier to pull the threads through.

My next project will be to try these with actual heavy-weight ponte knit and see if the edges look more finished and less ravely.

Do any of you know a source for 100% ponte knit? My google-fu turned up nothing - the places that say they have 100% cotton ponte in the search results, don't.

Or, at least, I can't. (I'm sure if I had special machines, I could.)

DSCN1724

I made this with a ponte knit, or double knit, I can't remember. It's theoretically what gloves were made out of back when people wore gloves on a daily basis. However, the fabric I found is much lighter weight and stretchier.

Interesting fact learned: my left hand is bigger than my right, which is why the thumb is ripped out.

I'm going to see if I can find some heavy thread and try to sew a pair by hand. Also, I'm scrapping my pattern and making a pattern from my favorite pair of vintage gloves that are absolutely trashed (holes, snags) and too small which I just cut apart. We'll see how that goes.

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Entries tagged with gloves

The fastest knitted gloves

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You cannot sew gloves by machine

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