Doubly Mittens

Fabric is "Labyrinth" which will be is available in the shop again, this time in a variety of colors.

Mittens. Doubly warm mittens! I used a double knit merino wool. And then I lined them with more double knit merino wool. Perhaps I should call these quadruply mittens!

Overkill? Perhaps.Temperature reached 51 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, the day I completed them. But it's snowing today in NYC and if we go through another cold spell here, another polar vortex, I'll be ready. :)

You may recall from this post that the mittens weren't working out the way they did in my mock up. I didn't do a redesign on the fly as I thought I might do. Instead, I turned to a tried and true, my unfelted version of Molly's Mittens. (Here's the link to the pattern page Purl Bee.) What I did was to cut two pairs of mittens that are pre-joined at the wrists. One pair is the outside that you see. The other is the lining. Once I got over the fact that I'll have to save my original design for a thinner fabric (and perhaps another winter), the sewing went along rather quickly.

Here's something else. No sergers were used to make these mittens! Yes, sewing enthusiasts, no need to stay away from sweater knits because you lack a serger. First I used a narrow zigzag (0.75 mm width, 3 mm length) for the seams and then a wide 3-step zigzag (5 mm width, 1 mm length) to sew the seam allowances together.

Yes, I sewed the seams first this time. Sewing the seams first may help prevent stretched out edges, I learned from the #fabricchat of January 17. Though we weren't discussing sweater knits in particular, I'm pretty sure this option is a good precaution. And if it's a wildly unstable sweater knit you're working with, you can always use a good temporary fabric stabilizer as I did in this situation.

The 3-step zigzag is another great finish for cut sweater knit edges. This is one of the edge finishes recommended by Pam Turbett in Revised Knit, Cut and Sew: Book 1. Those three stitches manage to darn any slightly fraying seam allowances quite nicely, and yet the seams and allowances remain secure and stretchy with good recovery, the way we all like our knits.
The 3-step zigzag is stretchy and darns together any slightly fraying edges.
I ended up being very glad I hadn't serged, because fixing the problem mitten areas involved a little bit of "unsewing" and recutting, something I might not have been able to do had I serged.

It's February and I'm finally ready for one of the coldest winters on record! How about you?

O!

4 comments:

  1. Those are really cute! In my ongoing search for the warmest mittens, I never thought about doubling double knit!!! You are my hero and probably my forever cold fingers' best friend! ;-)
    I'll be adding a long ribbed cuff to protect my wrists from the snow and wind that are so prevalent here in the winter.

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  2. They're very cute and the fabric is just beautiful! Hope it warms up soon over there!

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    1. Thanks! :) In some ways I have to admit I'm kind of enjoying the cold. I got to wear my "sleeping bag" coat (only appropriate for frigid weather) for the first time in years!

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